Paige Hert

Senior executive editor Natalie Murray, senior associate editor Lily Cooper and junior designer Ava Eaton all sit in conversation with recent clients. After the completion of the Parks and Trails Foundation logo, representatives visited the T-Wolf Agency to provide thanks for all the work done. “I know how beneficial it is to be able to work with clients,” Murray said. “We had a previous executive editor come back and tell us how good of an opportunity it is to have this agency here especially if you want to go into graphic design after high school. The people she’s in classes with didn’t have any access to the things we do here and there’s only one other LISD school that has a class like this. It’s just a really good opportunity to get real world experience especially when we get to work with people outside the school. It’s just so real to get that experience with actual clientele and how things really work in the industry.” Photo by Paige Hert

Walking through the halls, climbing the stairs, inside classrooms – the walls always have papers hung up with an announcement to make. Up in the corner, a colorful flier advertising a school wide event hangs along with multiple posters scattered across the board highlighting a new club or infographics for spreading awareness. With posters everywhere, it’s difficult to stand out. A special class has this covered, a hub of brainstorming and creativity, ready to create a design with some visual pizzazz.

The T-Wolf Agency is the school’s advanced graphic design classes,  who focus on advertising school wide events. From making posters and fliers to full programs, they receive clients and requests from everyone – teachers, clubs and organizations and also companies from outside the school. 

“One of my favorite things about graphic design is getting to work with the people around me and getting to see how everyone interprets different ideas and how they want to flesh out something,” senior executive editor Natalie Murray said. “I feel this way about working with clients as well. I love being social, so I think that gives me a really good opportunity to talk to people about what they want. I like to think that I’m able to get a pretty good idea of what they’re looking for and I enjoy making it for them.”

The only other graphic design agency in the district is at Glenn, called Grizzly Graphics, which makes both unique programs at the school. The class focuses on graphic design and collaboration skills, involving talking to clientele, receiving feedback and using different Adobe programs every day. According to senior associate editor Lily Cooper, the classroom has a really fun and inviting atmosphere.

“You always have your personal thoughts on your design,” Cooper said. “You immediately think it’s great and exactly what the client wants because it’s what you would want, but everybody’s brain works differently and you always have to go with what the client wants. It’s kind of frustrating when they continuously change up your designs, but you have to move past that.”

The agency often works with the Celebrities to design their programs and are currently working on their spring show program. The time it takes to create a design varies, but Stardust 2023, last year’s spring show program, took three months from start to finish. 

“I’m really proud of Stardust 2023 just because of how long it took,” Murray said. “The entire process was crazy, but I definitely learned a lot about talking to clients and trying to understand what they want. It came out really nice I think and I’m really proud of it. Something I didn’t get much of last year but I did get this year is I got tagged in the Celebrities story post about their holiday show. When they put up the advertisements, they tagged my Instagram account and I just thought it was the nicest thing. I think it’s really sweet when they give credit where it’s due.”

Their clients aren’t limited to the school, one such outside client being the Parks and Trails Foundation, who advocate and seek to enhance green spaces in Cedar Park. Big projects like this one have around three to four people working on it. This allows them to flesh out different designs and provide the client with a lot of different options.

“I liked the Parks and Trails logo because we took it from the very beginning and made multiple renditions of it,” Eaton said. “By the time I got to the end, I felt I had spent a long time with the project and took it so far. I like to be creative, but I’m not an artsy person and I can’t draw so I found that graphic design and this class was a way for me to use my creativity but not in an actual art class.”

The duration of a project varies greatly depending on the deadline and when the client needs to have the design ready by. Usually, final designs are confirmed around the one month mark, but creating a design can take as little as one week to three months. 

“Sometimes I like [my designs] and sometimes I don’t,” Eaton said. “I found that the designs I make in five minutes end up getting chosen versus the one that I had spent hours on, so sometimes that can be annoying. I would say I’m good at receiving feedback, but sometimes I don’t know how to incorporate it or receive it. I try to do what the client says, but it’s hard for me to keep my own opinion out of it because it’s what I think looks good and sometimes they don’t agree.”

The design process usually starts off with research that involves looking at different logos, styles, layouts and color palettes. The design is based on who the client is and the best way to implement their core ideas subtly into the design. The agency uses Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop and Indesign, but Murray said she likes using Procreate as well.

“I don’t always love [the designs I create],” Murray said. “One of our big rules is that the client is always right, so I can make my peace with that. Usually in the end, I’m always proud of what I create because I get to see it put to use which I think is really flattering. It’s honestly really surreal to see posters and logos just up and around, knowing I did that. Nobody really knows, but I did that.”

According to Eaton, deciding where and how to start on a design can be difficult. Planning out what the client wants through sketching, making adjustments and peer reviews helps to start on the right path. In the future, both Murray and Cooper plan on studying graphic design.

“It’s a really good and helpful experience because not many schools have this kind of program in it so it’s really beneficial to be able to talk with clients,” Cooper said. “Even speaking with adults is a really good life skill to have and getting that experience in the early stages is helpful. It’s kind of stressful and nerve-wracking but it’s just really beneficial.”

Anyone who wants the T-Wolf Agency to design for them can fill out this form here.