Georgia Magazine - January 2015 - 24

have to be able to communicate
ing level of comfort and ameniwith all segments of a business.
ties. As urban centers confront
"In the real world, you have
increasing challenges to provide
to sit down with marketing,
shelter, SCAD pushes the enadvertising and other profesvelope in shelter design for the
sionals, and you'll get tuned out
ever-changing urban community.
[if you can't communicate with
The three "pads" in this exthem]. Students know they're not
periment share outdoor spaces,
destined to become engineers,
including a community garden
but they can learn enough about
that residents may harvest.
the ﬁeld to talk with them."
With campuses in both
Drawing and painting are among the foundations for
Getting students through
Atlanta and Savannah, SCAD is
other majors at SCAD.
school is one thing. But then
especially convenient to Georgia
they have to get jobs. Tuition is expensive at SCAD, so
students, and many attend one or the other of the state's
there has to be a payday at the end of the course, and
two campuses.
the school takes placement assistance seriously.
Mittie Paul, 22, is a SCAD senior who started her colFrom Kennesaw but now living in Austin, Texas,
lege career at University of North Georgia in Dahlonega,
and working for IBM, Lynda Spratley began her graphic
where she majored in history. At SCAD, she is majoring
design career literally two weeks after completing her
in sequential art.
last classes at SCAD.
Why SCAD? Paul, the daughter of Doug and Sharon
Spratley already had a degree in mass communicaPaul, owners of Three Sisters Vineyards & Winery near
tions. After earning that degree in 2007, she worked in
Dahlonega, cites a number of factors. "For me it was
photography and did freelance graphic design, learnmainly because the program I wanted-sequential art
ing the basics along the way. "My graphic design work
(comics)-was one of only a few in the country. Not a
was picking up, but I realized I needed greater depth in
lot of art schools have it."
art," Spratley says. So she obtained a second bachelor's
She also cites the stimulating atmosphere. "You get
degree in 2014.
out of it what you put into it," she says, adding that it's
"I wanted more of the foundation classes to be well
"deﬁnitely not an easy route."
rounded," she explains. "When I saw that SCAD had a
Another factor she likes is the variety of fellow
graduate program in [graphic design], that was really
students. People from all over the world, she says, make
attractive to me, knowing they valued graphic design on this campus "much more international than my previous
that level."
college." One of her closest friends in the same major is
SCAD's Atlanta campus is headquartered in the forfrom Singapore, she adds.
mer Equifax building on Peachtree Street. There, on one
Proud mom and pop love to list her accomplishlevel of a parking deck, students developed what are
ments, noting that she's had some great success already
called the "SCADpads," small-135 square feet-amazwith self-publishing, and has customers and collectors
ingly self-contained living environments that can house
around the world. "She recently helped us design one of
a single person and provide him or her with a surprisour new wine labels," Doug Paul adds.

One ﬂoor of the parking deck at SCAD-Atlanta hosts three experimental housing units known as SCADpads. They share communal
outdoor seating and garden areas.
24

SCAD alumna Lynda Spratley, from Kennesaw, now works in Austin,
Texas, and got her ﬁrst job two weeks after completing her classes.

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Georgia Magazine - January 2015

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