It sounds so simple: This season AIGA Jacksonville’s high school mentoring program, Discover Design, designed an iPad app that encourages people to go out and explore their community. It’s everything but simple. A lot of work goes into developing something like this, and the program could not have done it without the help and generosity of one special person, Caroline Zwicker.

The app is called Discover Jacksonville and features 16 different themes created by the mentoring pairs. Read on for more behind-the-scenes details you may not have heard about.

Caroline Zwicker has been an art director at Shepherd, an advertising agency offering integrated branding, marketing, public relations and interactive services, for seven years. She is a 2004 graduate of Flagler College. She was first introduced to Shepherd and all the crazy characters that make it home through former Shepherdite and Flagler College professor Chris Smith. Caroline loved Shepherd the minute she started working there—so much so that she slept in a friend’s living room for almost a month before she was hired full time.

She has been the lead creative for National Vision, Inc. for the past five years. “During that time I’ve had the opportunity to start in production, realize I knew nothing, learn how an agency works as a graphic designer, and now I’m the art director griping that I didn’t see that last printout before it went back to the client,” she says.

Caroline just finished an iPad app for Florida Blue. “To date, I think it’s the shortest turnaround time I’ve ever seen an app approved under,” Caroline says. “Usually projects start at one point and end at another. It felt like everything was done simultaneously to ensure we met client expectations. I’m happy to say that we did! A Spanish version of the app is already in the works.”

During the third mentoring group meeting this year, Caroline presented how apps are built and what the students would be designing for their own projects. We can’t thank Caroline enough for the many many hours she put into programming our Discover Jacksonville app and talking to our group. 

“It makes my day to have something I’ve designed and programmed come to life,” Caroline says. “Wanting to share that excitement, I gladly volunteered to be part of Discover Design’s latest assignment. My journey started off by introducing the students to the finer points of designing for the iPad. The students, using a simple template, created artwork to bring their subject matter to the viewers’ fingertips. It’s pretty damn amazing that no matter what computer skill level the students had, they all understood and implemented the basics of app design. I can’t wait for them to tour through their own sections of the app and see their art respond to touch.”

Check It Out
Stop by Art Walk this Wednesday, June 6 from 5-9 p.m. to view the app design. We will be at CoWork Jax on Hogan Street.

~ Karen, president