Mike Ludwig has an important job for the ISU athletic department, but he didn’t see it coming.

Ludwig, a graduate student in art education, has designed all seven covers of the programs for the ISU home football games this season.

“Last year I did a poster … actually I did it independently and sold it. It was called ‘Cyclone Resurgence,'” Ludwig said. “After I sold a couple hundred of those, I decided this year — since I was still going to be in town — that I would like to be involved with the athletic department.”

Ludwig said he got in touch with Paul Meenan, the athletic department’s graphic designer and told him to visit his personal Web site, where he had some of his work posted.

“He said that he wanted me to do some stuff for them this year and I said ‘sure,'” Ludwig said. “Honestly, I didn’t expect something as important as this.”

Ludwig, who typically spends three weeks designing each program cover illustration, said each of the programs this season feature graduating seniors, including Seneca Wallace, Zach Butler, Atif Austin and Matt Word.

“Every person that’s an artist or a illustrator needs to get their work out,” Ludwig said. “And that’s exactly what I’m doing.”

Meenan said he liked what he saw in Ludwig’s artwork.

“It’s definitely what I’m looking for. Last spring, he sent me his drawings and offered his services to help out with the department,” Meenan said. “This fall, we wanted to come up with something a little different. Both of us discuss what to do for the programs and, so far, I like what I see.”

Ludwig said his job is an unpaid internship, and he has added to his portfolio by taking the position.

It isn’t just football players that Ludwig enjoys re-creating. In high school, he was a Chicago Bulls fan and drew Michael Jordan.

“Coming up about the end of this month, I’m going to have a new poster out, and that’s one of the reasons why I’m doing this promotion,” Ludwig said. “It’s a new full-color poster that’s going to look like a lot of these football programs. I sell these posters because I get them licensed.”

Ludwig said at the home games, he hands out glossies to the fans.

“Each of the pictures on the cover, I have the original. So I make prints of it on my computer with good photo paper,” Ludwig said. “I go out to random people in the game that bought programs so that they have a collector’s item and I autograph it. When I hand out the glossies, they give me weird looks because they think I’m a solicitor or something.”

Meenan said that he’s received some feedback from people about the programs. He said he is very happy with the way things turned out with them.

“The covers are different than the previous years because we use sports’ photos,” Meenan said. “This has been a one-shot deal for Mike, and it’s been good timing for the both of us. Mike has done a wonderful job.”

Ludwig said that he would do the programs for free again next year even if he had a job.