NOTE: The deadline to become a mentor has passed. Contact Storefront if you're interested in mentoring in the future.
Under the guidance of a professional mentor, VCUarts faculty, and Storefront staff, mOb will be taking on 15 community projects in student groups of 2-4. mOb mentors spend between 5-10 hours over the course of the semester providing feedback and guidance to the student team as they develop their deliverables. If you're interested in any of the projects below, use the form below to sign up as a mentor. The mOb session begins on Tuesday, August 18th. After projects are assigned to students, a project lead will contact you.
Institute for Contemporary Art
Designing a series of actions to create a presence for the ICA while the building is under construction.
Lillie Estes Mayoral Campaign
Designing an identity for community organizer Lillie Estes, who seeks the office of Mayor.
Recovery by Design
Developing a workshop for Storefront’s NEA-funded Recovery by Design series, and working with Richmond Behavioral Health Authority clients to curate an exhibit of outcomes from summer workshops.
VCU Office of Sustainability
Continuing to refine the design of a community garden on VCU’s campus.
Byrd Theater
Prototyping a uniform for staff based on film history, to enhance the Byrd experience.
Crystalis Institute
Transforming a basement with white cinderblock walls into a sacred space for nonprofit that promotes spirituality without organized religion.
Epiphany Preschool
Designing a variety of playhouses for 1-4 year olds, inexpensive and modern.
Friends of Riverview Park
Identifying community events that would be desirable to residents and creating a conceptual design for a skatepark, community garden, and playground.
Grace Inside
Working with a state prison chaplain to redesign an office.
Maymont Civic League
Helping to cultivate neighborhood pride through a flag, beautification projects, and developing programs to help residents with minor repairs and improvements of homes and properties, blighted/abandoned properties.
Richmond Anti-Violence Project
Create an identity for the VAVP, which works to address and prevent sexual and intimate partner violence within, and hate/bias motivated violence against, the LGBTQ community.
Saving Our Youth
Design a yearbook for this youth safety community organization.
Richmond City Health District
Creating architectural designs that could help customers make the "healthy choice the easy choice" and also experience the environment of the store as healthy and safety.
Valentine
Design an exhibit that explores — from Robert E. Lee to Arthur Ashe — what is a southern man?
mOb is a partnership of three design departments of VCUarts, Graphic Design, Fashion Design and Interior Design and one department of the Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs, Urban and Regional Planning. These departments operate an design lab that realizes the potential of design to shape the City of Richmond.
mOb + Storefront is a collaboration of mOb and Storefront for Community Design that combines the energy, enthusiasm and expertise of VCU students and faculty with Storefront’s community involvement. mOb + Storefront operates on the principle that good design makes a healthier city where citizens participate more fully in their environment, their government and their culture.