Tom Newmaster named a 2020 Educator to Watch by Graphic Design USA

Tom Newmaster, an adjunct teaching packaging design in the College’s Graphic Design department, has been named an Educator to Watch 2020 by GraphicDesignUSA.

Newmaster’s students have won 15 GDUSA Package Design awards, and his class has produced five Independent Cosmetic Manufacturers and Distributors (ICMAD) Young Designers Competition finalists, since the program started entering student work in 2015.

“I started out as an annual speaker at PCA&D, and at one point was told I should be teaching the packaging design class, rather than just showing up once a year for a few hours,” Newmaster told GDUSA.  “I didn’t give it much thought until the call came one day and I was offered the packaging design instructor position. I really didn’t think I was qualified for the job, but wanted to give it a shot. At the least I could get back to doing some art direction one day a week. Since I wasn’t necessarily doing design work every day, it would help keep me fresh with the design-related software.

“Sounds kind of selfish looking back, but that was probably just my inner voice talking me into doing something new and challenging. Now it’s much bigger … it’s passing on knowledge, sharing experiences, and helping the next generation of designers realize potential in another area of design.”

Newmaster, a 1989 graduate of Bradley Academy, has spent his career almost exclusively in the area of packaging design and brand development. Since 2017 he has been founder and partner in FORCEpkg, a Lancaster-based design and branding agency.

In the academic year that just wrapped up, Newmaster students Emily Phillips Ament, Kevin Foss, Dyneisha Gross, and Anthony Nardo, all members of the Class of 2020, won GDUSA 2020 Package Design Awards; Gross and Nardo were named Students to Watch by GDUSA; and Nardo was a finalist in ICMAD’s Young Designers competition.