On February 13, the JSU Marching Southerners announced their 2022 production: “One Giant Leap.” As the Marching Southerners Multimedia Design Team, Jacob Anderson, Alden Guinn, and Brooklee Mason – all of whom are current or former students of the JSU Department of Art and Design – are the creators of the release video. “It’s definitely our best release yet,” said Dr. Bodiford, Director of the Marching Southerners.

Anderson, a senior majoring in Graphic Design, explained, “The inspiration from the Southerners’ 2022 show “One Giant Leap” comes from all the advances that the university is currently making. When planning the visual representation of the show, we came to the conclusion that the depiction of space makes sense in fitting with the musical selections and as a metaphorical illustration of the goals of the program and the university. The sky is not the limit for such an amazing group of students and faculty.”

“With the release of the 2022 marching production, [the Southerners Multimedia Design Team] all sat down and gathered ideas from contemporary forms of design to create something that encapsulated the personality of the Southerners,” said Guinn, a senior also majoring in Graphic Design. “It honestly started off with a very basic idea of using typography and abstracted forms of space and gradually grew into a full-blown immersive animation.”

Guinn also explained that being both graphic designers and members of the Marching Southerners made the creative process easier for the team. “. . . The similar lived experiences and understandings we all have . . . always help when we have our small meetings by allowing us to bypass the issue many designers have with having to do tons of research on their audience – lucky for us, we are that audience!”

Both Anderson and Guinn expressed their gratitude for the opportunity provided by Dr. Bodiford and the Music and Art and Design departments. “Working as a designer for the Marching Southerners has been a dream come true and the work our team has created is only the beginning to creating a solid foundation for the Marching Southerners brand.”