Digital Graphic Arts

Instructor: Robert Gauvin

The Instructor

Robert Gauvin joined the Vocational Center faculty in 1985. His personal enthusiasm and energy are contagious and his students quickly find themselves involved in, and enjoying, a variety of activities and projects in the field of Digital Graphic Arts.
Mr. Gauvin graduated from Fairfield College Preparatory School and Fairfield University in Fairfield, Connecticut, with a BA in English literature. He has also taken courses at Sacred Heart university, the University of Connecticut, the University of Maine and the Maine Photographic Workshops.

He brings a wide spectrum of experience to his job at the Vocational Center. He has more than thirty-six years of experience in the field of graphic arts with more than twenty of those years devoted solely to digital design, illustration, photography, and typesetting.

When he is not teaching, Mr. Gauvin enjoys fishing, kayaking, camping, traveling, cooking and digital photography with his wife, Terrylee.

Digital Graphic Arts is a two-year course providing self-paced instruction and practice in the field of digital graphic arts. During your time at the Center, you will learn digital imaging concepts and skills in a modern digital graphic arts lab while honing the employability traits of dependability, resourcefulness, initiative, interpersonal skills and diligence.

In your junior year, you will learn and practice the foundations of the trade:

• Page Design with Quark XPress and Adobe InDesign
• Illustration with Adobe Illustrator
• Digital Imaging with Adobe Photoshop

You will learn these basics using individual lessons that allow you to advance at your own pace, taking as much time as you need to completely learn the basics before moving on to advanced lessons. You will practice and perfect these newly acquired skills by completing “live” jobs for customers:

• Resumes, cover letters
• Menus, order forms
• Flyers, posters, tickets
• Brochures, advertisements
• Letterheads, business cards
• Term papers, reports
• Signs, newsletters

All lessons and projects are performed on individual workstations in our modern, spacious digital imaging lab:

• G4 & G5 Macintosh computers
• 17  and 19  inch hi-res color monitors
• High-speed color laserwriters
• Grayscale laserwriters
• Wide-format inkjet printers
• Scanners
• Digitizing tablets
• Digital cameras

Any computer skills you have already learned, whether on PCs or Macs, will benefit you in this course. But even if you are a computer rookie, this course will provide you with the basic training needed to unlock your digital imaging potential.

You will use and improve the basic skills you have already learned in school:

• Basic math, including Fractions, Decimals, and Percents
• Ruler skills
• Written communications
• Verbal communications
• Color wheels

Learning good work ethics is stressed at the Center, so excellent attendance is also emphasized.

As a senior, your challenge will be to progress to the higher levels of training:

• Advanced Layout & Design with QuarkXPress
• Advanced Imaging with Photoshop
• PDF Images with Adobe Acrobat
• Digital Photography using Canon Digital EOS Rebel cameras

Along with mastering advanced software applications, you will spend your senior year mastering grayscale and color scanning and capturing images with digital cameras. Your projects will reflect this higher level of accomplishment.

If you are interested in printing, publishing, newspapers, magazines, art, design, comic strips, advertising, web design or photography, and aren't afraid to challenge yourself with hard work, this course has a place for you.

Upon successful completion of this program you will be qualified to:

• Attend a technical college to pursue a two-year Associate's degree
• Attend an academic college to pursue a four-year Bachelor's degree
• Seek entry-level employment in a digital graphic arts related field
• Enter military service

Talk to your parents about your career goals. Then, to arrange a visit, call Ann Thiboutot, Student Services Coordinator, at 474-2151.

You and your parents are always welcome.