Logan Byer, Matthew Dornan honored as 2025 GDUSA Students to Watch

Seniors Matthew Dornan, top, and Logan Byer have been named 2025 GDUSA Students to Watch.

Pennsylvania College of Art & Design is proud to announce that Logan Byer and Matthew Dornan have been named 2025 Students to Watch by GDUSA. These Graphic Design seniors have been recognized with more than 100 other outstanding undergraduate, graduate, and continuing education students from across the United States.

Logan Byer

This isn’t the first time that Byer has been nationally recognized for his work in graphic design. Just last year, he was part of the PCA&D team that won top honors in the nationwide Paperboard Packaging Council’s nationwide design contest, an honor that was announced in Atlanta at the organization’s annual convention.  He’s currently at work on his senior thesis project, which “is based around creating a skate shop called Critters, from the ground up, from logos, T-shirt designs, decks, to a whole skate video part. … With a large emphasis on core skate culture and community engagement.”

What makes you feel inspired? 

Something that gets me inspired is the idea of helping make change with design!

What area of design are you hoping to work in or specialize in?

I’m hoping to be able to work in packaging design or branding/marketing.

Who is someone you look up to in your field?

Someone I look up to in my field is Massimo Vignelli and his quote “If you can design one thing, you can design everything.”

What are you reading, listening to, watching?

Lately I’ve been listening to a lot of NOFX since they just recently retired.

Do you participate in any causes or charities, ie, Design for Good?

The Agency at PCA&D provided me with the ability to do design work for local charities, which was an amazing experience to help out several causes that I was personally passionate about.

Matthew Dornan

Dornan, who began his design career in high school creating graphics, flyers, and merchandise for local musicians in Frederick, Md., transferred to PCA&D in Fall 2022 after attending community college. A former intern at FORCEpkg, he has worked on designing packages, adjusting and creating new dielines, motion graphics, and logo designs. His senior thesis: “Lavender Skate Mag is a magazine dedicated to exploring the connection between the activity of skateboarding and the creativity involved. This can be explored through the art produced in the world of skateboarding, or by investigating the creative pursuits of skateboarders’ personal lives.”

Do you feel that design school has prepared you to search for and find a job?

Absolutely, I feel like the curriculum has a decent variety of projects that would prepare me for multiple sectors of the design industry. Also, from group projects, real-world clients, and even the in-school design agency, there was plenty of experience working for a common goal and creating designs for other people. I also know that PCA&D has a great network for alumni to gain jobs in the field.

What makes you feel inspired? 

I love trying to translate the feeling of something into physical art or design, whether creating an album poster or merchandise, a poster for a TV show or movie, or a package design based on an existing brand.

What area or areas of design are you hoping to work in or specialize in?

No idea! I have some experience already in packaging and I enjoy it, but I would also eventually like to work in music, doing merchandise design or album packaging. I have also always been interested in working on movie sets and designing props for movies.