Old Westbury, NY – NYIT architecture and design students are putting the finishing artistic touches on a colorful project that will end up on thousands of bicycles and backpacks in Europe.

The students are painting and drawing New York-style graffiti on large acrylic panels that will be cut up and manufactured into 10,000 bicycle reflectors that they will give away at the prestigious Milan Furniture Fair in April.

The final painting session for School of Architecture and Design students is scheduled for 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. on Friday, Feb. 24 at Education Hall.

NYIT is one of the few schools around the world invited to the fair, the largest international design trade show. A team of nine students, alumni, and faculty will exhibit a chaise lounge and desk, present a fast-paced NYIT-themed video collage, and distribute the reflectors at the NYIT booth.

This week, students in Old Westbury and Manhattan munched pizza as they hunched over panels at each New York campus, spray-painting "graffiti" notes and drawings. Among the messages were references to Knicks point guard sensation Jeremy Lin, greetings in Spanish and Chinese, a New York City subway map, and praise for artistic endeavors with quotes such as "Art Will Save the World" and "I prefer drawing to talking; it leaves less room for lies."

Next week, a Long Island-based company will cut the panels into circular shapes for the reflectors and stamp them with NYIT's website address. NYIT's team members hope that fair attendees who take a reflector will visit the NYIT website to view photos of the original panels.

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About NYIT

New York Institute of Technology (NYIT) offers 90 degree programs, including undergraduate, graduate, and professional degrees, in more than 50 fields of study, including architecture and design; arts and sciences; education; engineering and computing sciences; health professions; management; and osteopathic medicine. A non-profit independent, private institution of higher education, NYIT has 14,000 students attending campuses on Long Island and Manhattan, online, and at its global campuses. NYIT sponsors 11 NCAA Division II programs and one Division I team.

Led by President Edward Guiliano, NYIT is guided by its mission to provide career-oriented professional education, offer access to opportunity to all qualified students, and support applications-oriented research that benefits the larger world. To date, 89,000 graduates have received degrees from NYIT. For more information, visit nyit.edu.

Elaine Iandoli
Office of Communications and Marketing
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