The word ‘tissue’ has virtually been replaced by the word ‘Kleenex’ through the use of logos and trademarks. John Paul Gamboa, a junior in Elaine Snodgress’ business class, wondered about this phenomenon. “Logos affect our everyday language,” Gamboa said. “For example, instead of calling tissues ‘tissues,’ I call them ‘Kleenex’ because the company’s standard logo and its name is easy to remember.”

During the week of Feb. 17, students in Nyrie Gharibian’s sixth period design class and Snodgress’ sixth period business class worked together to create faux businesses and logos.

In a sort of game, Snodgress first formed teams of pretend stock investors with the students. Each team got a virtual $100,000, and by listening to her lessons, they would have to choose wisely to invest. Her students then were told to create a team name, which would be the name of their pretend business.

As with any business, there must be business cards. In this stage, each of Gharibian’s students was assigned a random business team. They then interviewed Snodgress’ businesses students. “They asked questions like, ‘What is your business?’ ‘What is your target audience?’ ‘What colors are you looking for?’ and ‘How are you going to use this logo?’ to figure out what they need to do,” Gharibian said. Then, the individuals competed to be the contractor for that certain enterprise they were assigned to.

“The purpose was to collaborate with another class in a business type of project that would give the design students the ability to create a project with a client that was in another class,” Snodgress said.

“It was a lot of work,” said junior Christine Lee, one of Gharibian’s design students. “But it gave me a lot of experience. There’s a lot of competition in the real world, and I have to keep up.”