DEREKH FROUDE/Arizona Daily Wildcat Visual communications senior Shannon Monti takes some time to appreciate the student work on display in the "Vis Comm" show at the Lionel Rombach Gallery yesterday afternoon. The show is now in its 26th year.

Most students haven't been alive for as many years as the annual "Vis Comm" show has graced the walls (and floor and ceiling) of the Lionel Rombach Gallery. The longstanding tradition has returned, this year demanding that the general public submit to its graphic whims.

Studio arts senior Mike Hensley created festive posters advertising "Submit," this year's visual communications exhibit currently at the gallery.

They feature bold red letters that scream "Submit!" and Latin American wrestlers in compromising positions.

Hensley was selected from a large pool of applicants from the senior graphic design class to organize and provide a theme for the event ("Vis Comm" for short), which is now in its 26th year.

"I was playing the duality of the art students submitting - people submitting in the wrestling ring and in the art building as well," Hensley said. "I thought it would be funny to kind of parallel the two and have a consistent theme running through the whole show."

The exhibit is an opportunity for chosen design students to obtain public response about their art.

"I think it's a great opportunity for students to get a viewpoint, other than the faculty's, about their work," said Jackson Boelts, art professor and faculty adviser for "Vis Comm." "This show used to be ceiling to floor artwork. Anyone who got anything turned in got it in the show, and I thought that seemed a little bit defeating, and we wanted to make it a little more quality-oriented."

Pieces vary this year from detailed illustrations of vehicles and faces, to abstract representations of femininity, to editorial pieces on personal ads.

Awards were given out March 29 for first, second and third place submissions. Bronze statuettes of Latin American wrestlers were distributed for special achievements, such as Best of Show, which this year went to art history senior Susie Aminian.

"She got a lot of pieces seen, and the judges noticed her work and felt it was very strong," Hensley said.

One of the pieces Aminian submitted to the show was a video that discusses her family's Middle Eastern heritage.

"I'm Persian, and my mom's father worked for the Shah of Iran, and when the revolution happened, they all had to leave. When I did that piece, I was thinking about how my grandfather died three years ago, and as the older generations were dying, their story was going to die with them. It really bothered me a lot and made me want to hold on to it," she explained. "It's really about their generation and my parents' generation and wanting to hold on to it and how it related to me."

As in previous years, three individuals from outside the University of Arizona were invited to judge the competition. This year, the judges are Rafael Lopez, an award-winning illustrator from San Diego; Michele Berry, senior designer for Landor Associated in San Francisco; and Jean-Francois de Buren, brand manager for Frog Design in Sunnyvale, California.

Francois de Buren is a UA Alumnus, having graduated in 1993 with a bachelor's degree in graphic design.

"I haven't been back in a long time, and I think I kind of miss it a little bit," he said. "I definitely like interacting with design students, seeing the work and hopefully giving some positive critiques based on what we've chosen."

Frog Design and Landor Associated are companies that do corporate branding, which is the act of making an overall design for a corporation, such as Visa or Ford, that help people to identify with a company or product. Such companies are potential employers for graphic design students.

"(Shows such as these) are great ways to make contacts," Hensley said. "We are having a dinner after the show with the judges. It gives students a chance to talk to the instructors on a very personal level · informal, more or less."

Judging spanned 18 categories, from book design to illustration, to Web promotion and so on. This year, there was even a miscellaneous category.

"Miscellaneous was a category for pieces that don't fit into any category, might be one or the other," Hensley said. "There wasn't a painting category, but there was one in the show, and painting goes hand in hand with illustration, so we put it in miscellaneous."

The exhibition runs through May 3 and is free to the public.