One group of students at Kent State participated in a designing event on Friday to help out organizations in the community. The students showed how all it takes is one idea and a few creative minds to make something worthwhile. TV2’s Paige Katrinchak reports…creating a design can become a challenge when you put time on the clock.

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Visual communication design students had the fourth floor of the library all to themselves early on Friday morning. The students sat in their separate groups sharing ideas and brainstorming for a new event at Kent State: CreateAthon.

CreateAthon is a 24- hour creative blitz in which students create a logo, brand, brochures, or posters for a non-profit organization. The students do pro-bono work for the non-profits. This year there were three groups to make brands for: Pioneer Girlz, Techlab, and the SHC foundation.

But what makes this event such a challenge to students? They only have 24 hours to create their products and presentations.

“It progressed very quickly, and very slowly at the same time,” Senior VCD student Gabe Schut said.

Schut said it was an exhausting 24 hours, but worth all of the time he put into it. He said it was a great opportunity to get to work with his classmates before graduating and going out into the real world to do the same kind of work.

Schut also became the star of the CreateAthon twitter page with the hashtag “#GabefromCreateAthon.” CreateAthon had a Tumblr as well ran by communication students.

But this creative event is about more than just designing for a non-profit. It is about collaboration between the students.

Student leader of the CreateAthon, Jamie Lefevre, worked to bring in non-profits and food for the event. Lefevre is responsible for bringing the event to campus.

Lefevre said she wanted students to do group work out of class, and she encourages students from all majors to work together.

“You have computer science kids, you have journalism kids, you have designers, you have fine artists, and we all kind of stay in our own little worlds,” Lefevre said. “I think we just really need to work on encouraging those people to come together. And the CreateAthon I thought was a good opportunity for that.”

At the end of the 24 hours at 9 a.m. on Saturday, the students presented their projects to the non-profits. Lefevre and Schut both said the students get to walk away with experience while the non-profits walked away with a brand.

In the end, the students also had to walk away to get some sleep.