When you fill your cup of coffee every morning from the dining halls or reach for a new bag of coffee grounds in Rosie’s, have you ever stopped to think about where the Flash Fuel design came from?
Emma Lentz, senior visual communication design major and multimedia designer for the marketing department of University Housing and Culinary Services, is responsible for the design.
The Flash Fuel coffee project started in 2021 as a collaboration between University Housing and Culinary Services and Rooted Grounds Coffee Co., an Ohio-based company.
Initially, students across the Kent Campus were given the opportunity to taste-test Rooted Grounds' coffee flavors and vote on a name for the flavor that would eventually be sold on campus. Overwhelmingly, students voted for the Flash Fuel name.
Lentz was given the opportunity to design the logo for the Flash Fuel coffee bags through her position as a multimedia designer. Throughout the eight-month process of designing, receiving feedback and testing, Lentz said the hardest part of the process was getting the color scheme correct when printing.
She wanted her design to represent colors, but in a fresh new way. After three test prints, the colors were finally correct.
“First was creating color schemes,” Lentz said, “Then what the clients wanted in terms of logos and then it became a template that you would put into a website that creates the coffee bag for you. Then from there it was kind of trial and error on colors and printing until we had it just the way that we wanted.”
Lentz said the biggest lesson she learned throughout this process was to collaborate with others. She credits the department and her supervisor, Sommer Dunlevy, assistant director of marketing for University Housing and Culinary Services, for her growth as a designer and as a team player in the collaboration process.
“I think for me it was getting to work collaboratively with other people,” Lentz said, “I've never worked in a large group where there are a lot of ideas coming in before, and at first it was overwhelming, but then it was kind of fun getting to play off of everybody else's ideas.”
Aside from creating the Flash Fuel design, Lentz has also collaborated on the creation of the Grill ‘72 design found in The Hub at the Kent Student Center, as well as other projects across the Kent Campus.
Upon graduation in May, Lentz hopes to move into a production or marketing design field. Her dream is to work for a retail company.
“I really enjoy what I've done in this job, getting to design marketing for a company,” Lentz said. “I kind of want to steer my sites more into that realm.”
Flash Fuel coffee can be found in Eastway Dining Hall as well as the D.I. Hub, and individual bags of coffee can be purchased in Rosie’s or the Eastway Market.
To learn more about opportunities in the Visual Communication Design program, visit /vcd.
For more information about University Housing and Culinary Services, visit /dining.