Erin Masur traces her interest in art back to family vacations to Norris Lake in Tennessee.

"My favorite type of boats are Malibu boats, and the graphics on the sides of those are awesome," she said, describing her inspiration to pursue graphic design.

"My dream job would be to live on the lake, drive half an hour down the mountain every day to work and design for Malibu boats."

As a junior visual communication design major, Masur has kept the theme of family in her life.

"We're a lot of fun," she said of the visual arts community at UD. "I know friends in the same major at other schools. They don't have the family that we have. We're supposed to be competing with each other, but we make each other better."

This has lead Masur to work toward creating an art fraternity, Lambda Gamma Tau.

While it is still in the planning stages, Masur said she is excited about its potential.

"It was going to be a graphic design fraternity, but since you have all these foundation classes the first two years and then everyone breaks off, you don't see each other anymore," she said.

She also said she sees the benefits that it will hold for the underclassmen.

"I want all the grades to be together so that people can feel more comfortable asking us questions now that we're the older ones," she said.

Masur said that graphic design is a lot of fun but also takes time and effort.

"I took a graphic design class in high school," she said. "It was fun but wasn't anything like it really is. It's a lot of work."

She said she's pulled too many all-nighters.

When she's not working on projects, Masur also devotes her time to a variety of other clubs that show her team spirit, such as Fusion, the graphic design club.

In this club, members help design graphics for different companies or other clubs. One of Masur's projects was to design the T-shirt for UD's chapter of Big Brothers Big Sisters of which she is a member.

After college, Masur said she would like to work at a studio.

"Fusion took us on a field trip to Real Arts' studio in downtown Dayton," she said. "[It was] unbelievable. It would be so much fun. I would love to get up every morning and go there."