Graphic Design Commons^™

Making Common, Elaine Lopez

Masters Theses

Making Common sets conditions for communication around cultural diversity and inequality. Through my practice, I create new ways to share, honor, and celebrate the stories that have been neglected for too long due to white supremacy, patriarchy, and other forms of structural oppression. I create immersive graphic design experiences that challenge people to question and expand their worldview. This methodology models an alternative way for designers to work towards a more just society

Lateral Movements : In Multifaceted Time And Space, Jieun Kim

Masters Theses

Orient, shift, calibrate, and soar—these four lateral movements provoke new ways of seeing beyond flatness: the single fixed point of view. I question the reasons and consequences of the dominant point of view and suggest interpretative and playful versions of possibilities.

The distribution of the internet and satellite photography has heightened the perception, interaction, and access to the world—time and space have become flexible. I use these tools deceptively to shift toward dynamic and multiple perspectives both in physical and digital space.

I create graphic environments into which people can enter, inviting people to maneuver in this multifaceted time and …

Softweave, Annaka Olsen

Masters Theses

The contents of this volume are a weaving.1 The text lays parallel to a graphic design practice that emerges from research into computation, digital publishing and speculative design. I ask how we can change the structures of world building to become collaborative and ethical practices — resisting hierarchy and reclaiming agency in the spaces we occupy. By making soft modifications imbued with feminist praxis across a variety of automatic processes, softwares, feeds, and streams, this thesis explores ways to open up critical avenues of making in order to speculate on fluid futures that we can co-author.

Standards, Rules, Setting, Robert Mcconnell

Masters Theses

Greetings. Welcome to Standards, Rules, Setting. This short preamble serves as a user guide to the material that follows. It is, essentially, a set of standards that govern the organization and progression of the various items in this publication.

Everything in this book has been conceived and constructed in line with the Graphic Design Thesis Book Protocol. As my body of work deals with the communication of messages and the manipulation of their governing conventions and norms, this publication — as well — has been organized along similar principles.

There are five types of components in this thesis book: sections, …

Every Data Point Counts: Political Elections In The Age Of Digital Analytics, Julian Kehle, Samir Naimi

Honors Thesis

Synthesizing the investigative research and cautionary messages from experts in the fields of technology, political science, and behavioral science, this project explores the ways in which digital analytics has begun to influence the American political arena. Historically, political parties have constructed systems to target voters and win elections. However, rapid changes in the field of technology (such as big data, artificial intelligence, and the prevalence of social media) threaten to undermine the integrity of elections themselves. Future political campaigns will utilize profiling to micro-target individuals in order to manipulate and persuade them with hyper-personalized political content. Most dangerously, the average …

Out Of Sight, Mei G. Buzzell

University Scholar Projects

Out of Sight, reveals the reality of the service industry that is often camouflaged from the front of the house. Over a two year period, my discoveries are the happenings of what transpires within communities that is repeated day and night all over this country. Only the text of my thesis book is displayed, the images can be found at my website at, meibuzzell.com.

The House That Credit Built: How Advertising Shaped A Culture Of Borrowing In The Decade Of Prosperity., Morgan Folden

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis is an examination of the visual rhetoric of the advertisements in 1920s America that encouraged consumers to implement payment plans to purchase commodities. It begins with an analysis of a standard advertisement found in a popular subscription journal and describes the ad’s reliance on an editorial-style layout to appeal to the rationality of the viewer, a theme common among marketing schemes of the surrounding decades. It uses an art historical approach to provide a new lens in studying capitalist economics and the provocative issue of empowerment versus confinement in the general visual representation of American housewives. The latter …

Works In Process - Scholar Edition, Pablo Galindo Aragon, George Garrastegui Jr.

Publications and Research

The creative field revolves around many professions. Creatives share a lot of common themes that are part of their process. It is with these themes that we establish a more impact way to listen to a podcast. Reviewing and breaking episodes up into chapters can effectively guide a student, aka a Scholar, in their path to establishing a creative career.Some of the most powerful ways to get ahead in the creative field is by networking, and obtaining valuable knowledge from other creatives. Gathering this information and making these connections can be quite the task. Not all young creatives are aware …

The Utilization Of Visual Design Systems To Promote Higher Levels Of Learning In Educational Environments, Keenan Sultanik

Masters Theses

Traditional higher education environments have changed very little in the last hundred and fifty years, while technology has advanced in nearly every other area of society making each more productive and more capable. This study identifies key aspects of a comprehensive and universal visual learning system that incorporates a more holistic approach to design and interactivity in educational environments. The desired effect of this is elevating classroom learning to higher levels as defined by Bloom’s Taxonomy. In this thesis, I have collected and explored empirical and observational data to examine the relationship between effective learning environments and the use of …

Framing The City: Photography And The Construction Of São Paulo, 1930–1955, Danielle J. Stewart

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Between 1930 and 1955 São Paulo, Brazil experienced a period of accelerated growth as the population nearly quadrupled from 550,000 to two million. In response, the municipal government undertook an aggressive public works program and commercial building boomed. Photographic representations of the cityscape were essential in directing modern São Paulo’s physical evolution because they reflected both the real—a chaotically growing megacity—and the ideal—a literally new, modernized space. This dissertation centers on four case studies of artists practicing different photographic modalities in order to analyze the symbiotic relationship between São Paulo's urban development and its photographic representation.

Construction sites, scaffolding, and …

Dance Of Exile: The Sakharoffs’ Visual Performances In Montevideo (1935–1948), Pablo Munoz Ponzo

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis explores the life-work chronology of the dancers and choreographers Clotilde von Derp (whose surname then was Sakharoff) and Alexander Sakharoff, who were exiled in Montevideo, Uruguay, and Buenos Aires, Argentina, between 1941 and 1948. During their stay in the Rio de la Plata region, the Sakharoffs stirred up the art scene by performing extremely detailed dances with great attention to costume design. This thesis begins with a review of the reception of the dancers’ performances by the artistic and cultural circles in Montevideo, arguing that the Sakharoffs’ “queer” trajectory resonated with the Uruguayan artistic community, influencing the creation …

Creating Visuals For A Start-Up Company, Andrea Goetting

Honors Projects

As part of the capstone in the Visual Communication Technology major, this project is intended to help a community member with a visual/graphic need as well as help me to understand the process of being a professional in the field. The main objective was to determine the basic visual needs of a start-up company and how to successfully produce those materials.

Critical Discourse: Thinking About Power, Privilege, And Voice, Stephanie Werth

Honors Projects

We Can Do Better is aimed at creating a space for a dialogue to occur, designed to facilitate conversation around the relationship of resources and identity. As a college student, engaging with difficult or unfamiliar topics is easier when participating in low-pressure, casual settings. Students will have to take chances and make choices, and may change their view of how opportunity affects everyone so they can make informed decisions. We Can Do Better intends for students to expand their knowledge of privileged identities in their community, understand constructed social systems through a dialogue of anecdotal evidence, gain empathy for those …

M0mentary Lapses, Alice Salyer

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The artist discusses her Master of Fine Arts exhibition Momentary Lapses, held at Tipton Gallery, February 25-March 8, 2019. The mixed media works and video examine the intersections between digital, somatic and societal decay through the mediation of the digital image by physical anthropogenic efforts.

Themes in the work include glitch art and theory, entropy, memory, decay, and loss. Contemporary American society’s desensitization associated with the oversaturation of digital imagery is discussed, as well as Guy Debord’s theory of the Spectacle, and the artistic practices of Kurt Schwitters and Robert Rauschenberg.

Once Upon A Time, Simon Saqueton, Todd Richardson

Theses/Capstones/Creative Projects

This paper is a short reflection on exposing myself to a variety of different media, (books, comic books, and television shows), that contains concepts on time travel. With this exposure, I will then attempt to draw my own comic book with time travel in it.

Something’S In The Water: A Look At How Creativity And Innovation Can Prevent Future Water Crises, Tristan Holiday-Nowden

Creativity and Change Leadership Graduate Student Master's Projects

The purpose of this project is to raise awareness and create a level of consciousness about water, unlike anything we have seen in the past. This project presents a synthesis of current writings and ideologies from the fields of Environmental Science and Water Research. As well as think pieces and informative news articles from various publications.

To illustrate the damaging effects of water contamination, water pollution, and water scarcity; Flint, Michigan will serve as a case study. After diagnosing and defining the problem using the Creative Problem Solving (CPS) framework. This project will explore the challenge and look at the …

Digital Detox - Addressing The Issue Of Screen Addiction In Millennials, Tyler M. Hicks

Undergraduate Honors Theses

This conclusive study is based upon a project of a social awareness campaign designed to reduce screen time in older children and Millennials. This is achieved through the uses of all modern aspects of a campaign: posters, advertisements (social and print), as well as a trio of posters that explain the concept of the campaign. Lastly, this all pulls together with the intended use of both a microsite and mobile app.

Keith Haring: Silence = Death, Nellie Jalalian

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

The American aids crisis is one of the most important epidemics of the contemporary world, yet many americans do not know the severity of the crisis or the true lasting effects on recent society. In my project I will go over personal accounts of individuals directly affected by the illness, like famed artist Keith Haring, to give it a more human perspective. I will also reflect on the art that was created at the time, and how that was reflective on the people affected. Aids is an immunodeficiency virus that has been proven difficult to diagnose in the early on …

Exploring The Enneagram Through Visual Aesthetics: Profiles For Personal Home Décor, Sarah K. Casmass

Masters Theses

The home is an environment that is the prime center for self-expression, personal sanctuary, and solace. On a psychological level, the home is a representation of the individual and, therefore, that individual should identify and find pleasure in their personal home space. Decorative art has long provided visual solutions for our innate desire to accentuate our spaces and express ourselves. However, there is a need for a connection between the visual arts and the augmentation of our basic psychological needs through home décor. With countless resources available for an individual to become more self-aware, there is a deficit in the …

The Migrant Times, Jessenya Guerra

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

This senior capstone newspaper shows how the Mexican diaspora has become integrated into American culture.