Art and Design Commons^™

Less Water, More Holy: Tools For Sustainable Ablution, Faheem Khan

Theses and Dissertations

Prayer is an important part of life for many people, whether it takes the form of meditation or talking to God. Muslims pray five times a day, and before each prayer, they first clean themselves by performing ritual ablution (wudu). The eight-step purification process of wudu cleanses the body from head to toe. The Hadiths of Sahih al-Bukhari and Sahih Muslim tell us the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ needed just one mudd of water (650ml) to complete wudu, but most people consume many times that amount—four-to-seven liters is more common today.

To visualize and better understand the nature …

Girl In Action: Junior Bazaar, 1945-1948, Rose D. Bishop

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis provides an overview of Junior Bazaar, a short-lived magazine for teenage girls published by Hearst between 1945-1948. Under the supervision of art director Lillian Bassman the magazine featured a variety of aesthetic devices — such as photomontage, asymmetrical layouts, the selective use of color, and playful placement of graphic forms — in efforts to distinguish itself from other publications on the market and construct a visual space specific to its teenage readers. Bassman’s unconventional stewardship of Junior Bazaar made room for an up-and-coming set of photographers, including Richard Avedon, Robert Frank, Diane Arbus, Louis Faurer, and other …

Sound And Vision: Marketing Recorded Music In The Age Of Radio, Daniel Martin Murphy

Theses and Dissertations

In the early 1930s, the popularity of radio and the economic austerity of the Great Depression threatened to make the phonograph record obsolete. However, by the time the United States entered World War II in 1941, records were returning to popularity. This return coincided with the first instances of the appearance of unique cover artwork on record albums. This thesis explores the cultural and industrial factors that converged in the late 1930s to make album artwork viable in ways that it would not have been earlier. This thesis also investigates how RCA Victor and Columbia, two record companies that had …

Finding Unfound_Graphic Hybridity, Yaeyoung Park

Theses and Dissertations

Hybridity is the result when visual form, color or tools interact. While not every combination of multiple elements result in success, I believe creativity, intuition and serendipity determines the successful hybridity. This is the documentation of my journey to develop a personal definition of successful hybridity in graphic design.

Unloosed: Designing Participatory Objects, Laura Schlifer

Theses and Dissertations

The ubiquity of technology has mediated the means of receiving content through digital networks; users have complete control over receiving, shaping, and sharing information. In contrast to the inherent elasticity of these networks, physical pieces of communication often manifest through a closed and highly controlled process. However, the increased prominence of user-interaction with media provides an opportunity to evaluate the design process as it applies to the creation of physical objects. Throughout much of my work, I investigate the potential for unloosening the control of designed objects by inviting others into the design process. By considering the audience as active …

Designing Connection, Laurie K. Culshaw

Theses and Dissertations

Social connection is an essential human need. Personal connections exist at a variety of depths and within different types of relationships. Small daily choices determine the strength of those connections and their impact on our well-being as individuals and as a community. Modern society and technology have altered the speed and channels of connection, increasing communication but decreasing meaningful connection. It is critical to understand how the methods of communication affect the depth of connections. Through a series of participatory graphic design projects, I analyze the strengths and weaknesses of one-on-one, small group and community connections within an established taxonomy …

Re:Creation, Heather Boone

Theses and Dissertations

This intent of this project is to explore the importance of handmade objects in the age of information.

Arabic Typography Play, Sarah Alfalah

Theses and Dissertations

I believe that spoken and written languages are verbal and visual expressions of cultures. Language is used to convey and sustain values and the belief system of people. Arabic is a language of complexity and formal beauty that is being disregarded and pushed away by its own native speakers. It is losing its value in the Arab world. In other words it is dying. Both the written and spoken language is being affected. As the world is interchanging, integrating, and becoming closer, there has been a strong impact on many societies, threatening their original culture. Arab cultures are abandoning the …

Transforming Narratives, Lucia Weilein

Theses and Dissertations

Narrative, often considered synonymous with “story,” can be viewed from a structuralist perspective and analyzed independent of any particular content. Breaking narrative into categories of story and discourse, this autonomous structure makes possible a translation of content from one form to another. The various media and form types common in graphic design can serve as both recipient and translator of narratives, converting content into a framework that includes the concept of craftsmanship, aesthetic components and specifications, legibility and composition, and the physical form of the designed object. To examine how this framework functions in practice, I have developed a series …

Space: A Discovery Of Visual Language, Kelley White

Theses and Dissertations

Space is a visual communicator. The act of perceiving space is a neurological soiree that projects and negotiates meaning in our constructed world. The poetry that we observe within space is tied directly to our emotions and to previous experience. Within ourselves, we each have particular feelings, unconscious or not, relating to height, length, and depth, as well as light and shadow. For example, a long, narrow hallway may elicit anxiety, while an open, sunlit nave in a cathedral may bring about feelings of serenity and joy. Our observations and interactions within the perceptual confines of space reveal clues to …

Visible Trace A Series Of Selected Projects Reflecting My Graduate School Experience, My Interest In Mark Making, Typographic Collage, And Serendipity., Meaghan Dee

Theses and Dissertations

Mark-making captures movement and preserves gesture. Marks can reveal the motion behind their creation and convey thoughts through non-verbal, non-literal means.

Graphic Design As Projection, Bret Hansen

Theses and Dissertations

I imagined a world where designing is projecting and where the entire design field is called projection. My research into what it means to be a projector culminates in a participatory creative project that embodies concepts of projection taken from a range of disparate subjects.

Geologic Typography, Eric Karnes

Theses and Dissertations

In this project, I explore how the processes and structures of non-design disciplines can influence typographic form. Using the field of geology as a test case, I apply geologic processes to typographic form in order to create dimensional structures that speak to a wide audience.

Typography: From Internal Conflict To External Content, Ernest F. Bernhardi Iii

Theses and Dissertations

This body of work represents a celebration and pursuit of realizing an alternative language, one capable of expressing internal conflict through process and response to external typographic form and content.

A Sense Of Place: A Personal Exploration, Analysis And Re-Interpretation Of Diverse Places, Hyejin Park

Theses and Dissertations

Every city/place has unique, distinctive qualities. Individuals acquire a sense of place in accordance with their own experiences and perspectives, which may not be the same as the experiences and viewpoints of another person. In this project, I explore, analyze, and re-interpret three places that have creatively and emotionally influenced me and remained in my memory: Times Square, New York City; Insadong, Seoul, South Korea; and Broad Street, Richmond, Virginia. To comprehend and draw a sense of place, I observe, feel, and document the characteristics of each place through different methods and processes, based on my own experiences. In addition, …

Vernal, Jason Orvis Dilworth

Theses and Dissertations

Culminating with a dream, this project transverses theoretical and geographical boundaries with explorations into the message-carrying potential of video, sound, performance, print, and web. Stories and content are extracted from an autobiographical history of one small western town turned boomtown. That town, the center from which the project emerges, is Vernal, Utah.