The GDES Portfolio Show

The Proof is more than a portfolio. It is a collection of work that demonstrates growth, problem-solving, and creative exploration over time. Each piece reflects not only skill, but persistence, adaptability, and the ability to transform ideas into meaningful design. It shows where each designer started, how they’ve evolved, and what they are capable of creating moving forward.

Next Level is a video game–themed portfolio exhibition showcasing the work of emerging designers who have advanced beyond the fundamentals and into refined, professional practice. Inspired by the structure of gameplay, the show highlights each designer’s progression—through challenges, experimentation, and growth. From early concepts to fully realized solutions, every project represents a milestone reached and a skill unlocked. Next Level celebrates not just where these designers are now, but the journey that got them there—and the momentum they carry forward.

Action24 was the 2024 NIC Graphic and Web Design portfolio show, set for the evening of May 3, 2024, from 5 to 8 pm in McLain Hall on the Coeur d'Alene campus, where thirteen graduating designers put their graphic design, web design and interactive video work in front of the public. The identity runs on a secret-agent briefing: the site opens with "Your mission, should you choose to accept it…", counts down to the doors, and files every graduate under "Special Agent". The wordmark answers with the designers' own tools instead, a mouse cursor launching out of the type and a pen nib finishing the 4.

Recollections was the 2023 portfolio show for North Idaho College's Graphic and Web Design program, held at the Jacklin Arts & Cultural Center in Post Falls on 7 May from 5 to 8pm. Eleven graduating second-years showed the work they were proudest of, with free stickers and food on offer. The identity, designed by Kya Timmins from inside the class, is built on polaroid pictures and looking back over the two years the eleven of them spent together.

Launch was the 2022 North Idaho College Graphic and Web Design portfolio show, the graduation celebration for the nine students finishing the two- year program. It ran on Saturday, May 7, 2022, from 5 to 8 PM at the Jacklin Arts Center, with food, printed design work to look at, and stickers and goodies to take home. The identity treats the class as one cutaway building: nine illustrated rooms stacked into a single elevation, one per graduate, each furnished with that person's own interests and clickable through to their work.

Undaunted was the 2021 spring portfolio show for North Idaho College's Graphic & Web Design program, presenting the work of the fifteen students graduating that year at the Jacklin Arts Cultural Center on April 23, in person and on a Facebook Live stream. The class built the site that carried all fifteen portfolios and named the show with one word, printing the dictionary definition of it on the opening screen under the line "resolutely strong". They also attached a game: a scavenger hunt of fifteen questions, one answer hidden in each student's portfolio, with a prize bundle of the graduates' sample work mailed to a winner.

Diverse was the 2020 North Idaho College Graphic and Web Design portfolio show, presenting thirteen graduating designers. The class named it for the wide range of designers about to graduate and set the HTML <div> tag inside the word, so the title reads both as the adjective and as the generic container element that holds whatever you put in it. The room never happened: COVID-19 turned the April 24, 2020 event into a live stream, and the students ran the identity, the site, the booklet and the video themselves.

DSCVR was the 2019 North Idaho College Graphic & Web Design portfolio show, held on the evening of Friday, May 3 at the Workforce Training Center in Post Falls. Thirteen graduating designers made up the cohort, and the show site gave each of them an illustrated portrait, a short first-person statement, and three pieces from their portfolio. The name is "Discover" with the vowels taken out, and the identity drew the whole class by hand as black-and-white line portraits rather than photographing anyone.