Art and Design Commons^™

Happy, Dontay Farley

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis is an exploration of graphic design and how it can be used as tool to create awareness about mental illness and positive solutions to decrease its affect on individuals. Using the “simple things” in life as metaphors, this thesis attempts to use graphic design as a way to help decrease depression. Drawing on the emergent strands of enquiry associated with mental illness, this thesis will investigate how design and its basic principles can be used create positive experiences for the complex issue of mental illness.

This thesis will also review the body of critical and historical design thinking, …

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 …

The Call Of The Undertow, Rebekah Bradford

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

Artist Statement

Prior to becoming a graphic design student, I was very interested in illustration. I wanted an opportunity to hone my illustration skills, focus on one consistent style of illustration, consistently draw the same characters, and practice writing. Creating a children’s book gave me the opportunity to do all of those things. And, after several semesters of work, it’s great to finally see The Call of the Undertow completed! I hope that you enjoy reading this story and looking at the images because I enjoyed creating it.

Colaboratory: Design Collaboration For The Greater Good, Lindsay B. Tyson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Graphic design is a powerful tool, which has the power to shift perspective and create an impact. A recent shift in the design world has graphic designers using their skill sets to address complex social problems, to engage their audience in new ways that bring awareness to a social issue for the greater good of society. This thesis examines how graphic design collaboration ignites social change within a community and inspires transformation in human behavior. It explores how designing for the greater good impacts our society; and how these collaborative experiences improve the community and clients they serve. This thesis …

Zoetic Fitness, Brooke S. Fremeau

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Graphic design is a problem-solving field. A client or company tasks a designer with a problem, and to solve that problem the designer uses 2D fundamentals and technology. As a designer, one must carefully listen to the client to understand their needs before making design decisions. While graphic designers are responsible for creating stunning visuals for both print and digital media, one of the most important aspects of graphic design is branding. Broadly speaking, branding is the process involved in creating a unique name and image for a product or service in a consumers mind. Through branding, the designer aims …

Colaboratory: Design Collaboration For The Greater Good, Stephanie Arends Neal

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

A university campus is comprised of countless students enrolled in an array of degree programs that logistically creates a diverse population that can and should culminate into a dynamic professional network for graduates. How can higher education capitalize on this melting pot to provide experiences for students and fuse this network? A place, where students collectively solve problems by applying knowledge from their degree-specific areas, will foster interdisciplinary collaboration. By requiring working-relationships between students that benefit their community, a design center will provide students with experiences across disciplines that mirror a real-world, collaborative work environment while they identify opportunities and …

The Effect Of Medium On Perceived Authenticity In Graphic Design, Micah Joseph Bauer

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

Micah Bauer MFA Creative Project

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.

The Impact Of Branding And Marketing Strategies On Events With Sole, Jennifer Vucinich

Graphic Communication

The purpose of this study was to research current marketing, branding, and social media strategies and apply those to Events with Sole, a nonprofit organization that establishes running and multisport races in Northern California. This study explored the impact of these strategies on nonprofit organizations and the importance of sustaining a brand identity. More specifically, this research defined effective logo design for nonprofits, and based on collected data, provided suggestions for potential improvements to be made to the current Events with Sole branding. This research also provided suggestions for improvements to be made to social media strategy and marketing tactics, …

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 …

Vogue As An Example Of Effective Fashion Magazine Covers, Kiefer Hackney

Graphic Communication

Abstract

In this study, my objective was to determine what cover design elements contribute to the success of Vogue, the world’s leading women’s fashion magazine. I found that color, fonts, layout, and photography all work together to make a cover that both catches the reader’s eye and gives the reader information about the magazine’s contents. I was able to narrow this down through extensive research on the background of women’s fashion magazines and, specifically, the history and future of Vogue.

In order to find out what is different about Vogue’s printed magazine covers compared to other fashion …

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 …

Narrowing The Margin: The Role Of The Black Superhero, Julian S. Strayhorn Ii

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Comic books can be understood as a visualization of popular culture in the U.S. For a long time these tales were formed by a white power fantasy, circulating in mainstream culture as over-exaggerated narrations. To give an example of white power fantasy, Dwayne McDuffie, a prolific writer in popular entertainment states:

“…if I write, as I have many times, a story where Daredevil, who doesn’t have powers, gets the drop on Thor, who has unbelievable powers, people go Oh, that was so cool! Daredevil was so clever! If I have Black Panther do the same thing that’s impossible! It’s like, …

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.

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 …

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 …

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.

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 …

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.

Tailored: Living Through Wearable Design, Lindsay Vaughn Chenault

Art and Design Theses

Tailored is a graphic design experiment which explores clothing as communication. It tells the story of my life through my body and the “designed” skirts I wear. Clothing is a visual representation of who we are and what we do. Through Tailored I am pushing the boundaries of how people read what I wear. I have designed and made skirts that explicitly define (through words, fabric and image) the six main compartments of my life. This paper records and explores the visual experiences I create for those around me and myself. Tailored is a personal investigation of how clothing speaks …

Design Concept: My Amalgamation Of Eastern And Western Cultures, Yuting Dong

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

While exploring various subjects in multiple techniques in multiple mediums, I create abstract images that illustrate high technology, urban life, and personal feelings. My work is influenced by Eastern and Western culture. Media, publication, and fashion are derived from Western culture, and design elements are derived from Eastern culture. In doing this, my goal is to achieve more opportunities, greater depth, and a wider audience for my work by cross-utilizing these diverse culture aspects.

Design With Benefits : Combining Healthcare Step Programs And Design Tools To Make A Difference In Community Health, Emily E. Frye

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

I am aware that there is increasing emphasis being placed on designers pro actively designing services as opposed to simply creating artifacts. Looking past “selling” and moving toward enabling solutions that are for the greater good, this paper makes use of ethnographic contexts of communities involved to guide design. My thesis project designs a service plan and a program with artifacts. It is aimed at helping rural West Virginia Clinics intervene with unhealthy patients to help them prepare for a pro-active lifestyle. This program, named BeneFIT, was designed with user-centered methods and incorporates the Transtheoretical Model (TTM) developed by James …

Tolerance: Challenge, Perception, And Social Stigmas Defined Through Visual Communications., Ursula Moore Bryant

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

My explorations and journey through life have led me to discover a connection in my work and responsibility as a visual communicator. My objective of communicating challenge, perception, and social stigmas through informed stories of individual lives is to provoke questions and spark moments of awareness in viewers. With this supporting manuscript, I hope to inform about my motivations through time including my personal, artistic, and historical influences. I will define graphic design as a fine art through the evaluation of artistic movements. I also intend to discuss design as a language and build a case for social awareness. Evaluating …

Type Image And The Art Of Protest., Wendy R. Blair

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis is the culmination of my work as a graphic artist thus far. I chose to investigate the use of type and image in the production of social protest art, as it relates to historical and contemporary art as well as my own. Methods used in gathering the data include references from books, periodicals, websites, and hands-on application of the artistic process. Conclusions found within this paper suggest that using type and image within a multimedia process, serves to communicate important messages and attempts to educate the viewer on important political and social matters. Protest art has and will …

3d Animation: Creating An Experiential Environment., Dorai Raj Arjunan

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis is a supporting paper for three of my 3D animations created and presented for a Master of Fine Arts graduate exhibition. It discusses how the two realms of graphic design and 3D animation helped me to develop my heuristic techniques of creating animations. Using the three animations as examples, I make an attempt to explain how linear and figurative images influence each other in the creative process of creature/character development. I also discuss the various influences and cumulative explorations behind the imageries of animation. A brief discussion about Asian Indian aesthetic concepts and the general methodology of creating …

Legibility: How Precedents Established In Print Impact On-Screen And Dynamic Typography, Heidi Specht

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

The printed word has been commonplace in society for over 500 years; the written word has been in existence for thousands. The primary intent of the written or printed word has historically been to be read. With that goal, rules and formats have developed over the centuries as aids to legibility. Naturally, these guidelines have been developed for the printed, or static typographic page. As our sophistication with and acceptance of technology grows, however, we increasingly turn to the computer or television screen for written information. Additionally, graphic designers and artists are questioning the role of the printed word as …