Jenny Venn and her students are working on an initiative that not only pays graphic designers for their work but also meets small, underserved businesses where they are. 

These students are a part of a summer class — “Graphic Design Studio” — taught by graphic design instructor Venn. 

Venn said the experimental design class combines both graphic design for social change and for the business aspect. 

“Each of the students had to pick an under-resourced small business to help elevate through design and marketing,” Venn said. “The students learned how to build websites, do social media management and social media account development.” 

Venn said the students also learned how to use professional business tools such as contracting, invoicing, time management and project management. Through this class, students connected with their clients and created designs based on what they learned. 

Venn then announced that her studio, StudioJenVenn, is launching a collective called Better Co. Collective, a social initiative created by Venn and a select number of students from the ADCI aimed at bridging a gap in design and services. 

“It really is an extension of that graphic design studio summer class,” Venn said. “Initially, the whole roots of that class is design for social change and then also the business of design.”

Venn said that asking questions, such as “How can these students become working graphic designers?” and “What do they need to know to be able to do that?” led to the collective’s creation.

“Every single person in that class was hungry for working experience with clients,” Venn said.  “While I knew that I could hand them any number of clients, and they could just work for the clients for free, that wasn’t creating a sustainable system that could be long lasting.”

Venn said it’s easy for students’ work to get taken advantage of.

“We, as a class, did research on spec work and also unpaid internships,” Venn said. “(The research) showed that (businesses) don’t actually value the work and implement it in the way they would if they would have financially or materially invested in the design work with resources… so that’s really what forced our pivot.”

Speculative work or “spec” work is creative work performed without fair compensation. 

The pivot Venn is referring to is what she calls the “fish pivot” which is inspired by the Laozi quote, “Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime.” 

“I said (to the students), ‘Look, I can keep doing this for you guys, and I can keep connecting you to clients, but I want you to be able to fish for yourself,’” Venn said. 

Venn said that there are a lot of under-resourced businesses that don’t have the capabilities to pay a contract designer monthly for services. 

“We’ve got to set them up, so this is something where they can fish, too, and then just reach out if they need help,” Venn said. “That’s really what led to Better Co. Collective, and that’s why it’s a collective, because it’s all of us working together and working individually at the same time.”

One community partner Venn is working on this collective with is Eddy, who prefers not to disclose his last name. Eddy runs Wichita By E.B.

Before Better Co., Venn had worked with Eddy on other client work. The ADCI department and Harvester Arts are also working with Better Co.

“In conversations with Eddy and even in my own work in my studio, I work primarily with small businesses and nonprofits,” Venn said. “We want to help those people that just don’t have access otherwise.” 

Once Venn matches the business with the student, they draw together their project proposal as well as a contract for the client. Then the client is invoiced for the 50% deposit. 

Venn’s aim is to have the students drive business discussions and steps.

“I could easily take all the payments through my studio and pay the students an hourly rate, but then that doesn’t give the students autonomy to know how to do this on their own,” Venn said. “When they randomly bump into someone at a networking event who needs design services, when that happens, these students (can say), ‘Great, I’ll get you a project proposal next week.’ They know what to do to do this on their own.”

In conversations she’s had with educators across campus, Venn is asking how the initiative can be cross-collaborative. 

“In the industry, we all work together,” Venn said. “It’s not just graphic designers doing this.”

Better Co. can be found at bettercocollective.com, as well as on Instagram and Facebook. 

Questions about the collective can be sent to Venn at [email protected]. 

“My overarching hope for the collective is that it’s not just graphic design,” Venn said. “It’s the way that it would be in the working world.”