Through a collaboration with Idealliance®, digital media students have the opportunity to take training courses online. Idealliance is a graphic communications organization that serves brands, content and media creators, creative agencies and design teams, and innovators and developers worldwide.
With the closure of the UH College of Technology digital media labs due to COVID-19, equipment was unavailable to the students. Jerry Waite, professor and coordinator of the digital media program and lab manager Mike Dawson decided to assign the online Idealliance courses to their students. Kristen McKiernan, a member of Idealliance and president of the software company AccuZIP, Inc., paid for the membership fees, allowing students and educators access to the Idealliance benefits plus over 89 hours of leading certification training and exams.
Kelis Woods, an aspiring creative strategist, has taken full advantage of these courses by becoming the first student to complete all the required color management professional “master” courses. Enjoying the depth of the Idealliance courses, Woods is now CMP Master certified. He said that the color management professional course helped him to explore color management and the terminology used in the print industry. “The Idealliance courses have helped me gain more insight into color theory,” Woods said. “Now, I know how to check color, how inks are made, how to acquire specific colors, and the importance of analog and digital printing. Knowing the limitations and possibilities of color in printing, I can make better decisions in my future projects.”