Graphic Design Commons^™

Comfort Toys: Coping Tools For Children With An Epileptic Parent, Benjamin Evjen

Theses and Dissertations

When a caregiver suffers from epilepsy, a child can often feel frightened, vulnerable, and alone whenever a seizure occurs. In my thesis project I intend to help children negotiate this struggle with the use of therapeutic toys. Through play, children can navigate feelings that are often overlooked by adults. The visual appeal, simplicity, and materials used in their creation help facilitate comfort through sensory cues. By applying coping mechanisms to deal with stress caused by the passage of time, provide tactile comfort, and equip the child with tools to take action, their emotional needs are met. These toys address an …

Graphic Design For The Shark Reef Aquarium [Course Project], Alexxis Rodriguez

Calvert Undergraduate Research Awards

This essay examines the thought processes of how a short, informative booklet was constructed for the Shark Reef Aquarium. Methods of research includes searching for valuable, credible articles, viewing competitor’s designs, visiting the company’s official information and media, and gathering design books for inspiration. Other ways of research include the designer’s ability to think critically in order to create intentional design that effectively communicates the information to the reader. Ultimately, looking at Lied Library’s resources has played a role in the booklet design and how to think about the supporting design elements.

Commonthought (2016 & 2017), Commonthought Staff

Commonthought

This issue features works created by Lesley University students and covers a broad range of topics. The work itself crosses many disciplines from creative writing to visual arts.

Branding The Uni/Wellness Recreation Center: Creating A Cohesive Cross-Media Collegiate Recreation Identity, Rachael Bair

Honors Program Theses

This thesis produced a branded cross‐media campaign for the UNI Recreation Services department. A brand, or visual identity, was needed to tie together all of the promotional materials being produced for Recreation Services. Before I created the brand, the department's materials did not have a consistent visual style, and each program within the department maintained its own materials. As a result, visitors who came to the department office often left with a handful of visually inconsistent printed materials. Additionally, print materials often needed to incorporate large areas of purple and gold in order to stay within guidelines set by University …

Work It: A Study In Fashion Photography Portraiture, Dominic J. Iudiciani

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

Fashion is a device with which the perception of one’s appearance is manipulated. It is a device that is used across all cultures to identify, symbolize, isolate, and appropriate. It is figuratively and literally woven into the fabric of humankind as a whole. Fashion has the ability to reinforce gender or create dissonance within it through androgynous silhouettes. It can express strength and confidence or emphasize vulnerability.

Through this study, the use of specific studio lighting techniques accentuates design elements of a highly curated collection of avant-garde, 21^st century garments. Drape, texture, form, and luster are but a few …

Hand Lettered, Jennifer L. Shaw

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

Around this time last year, I discovered hand lettering on chalkboards around Folk for the NASAD accreditation show. I found these pieces to be particularly inspiring and wanted to learn how to create something similar. Having absolutely no experience with hand lettering I knew that this was going to be a long process. I tasked myself with creating 100 small pieces in varying styles to teach myself hand lettering. I was inspired to end the project with a large chalkboard mural about the school of art to then be donated to the school when the project is complete. The reason …

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.

Roam: Where She Goes, Tamara Lewis

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

The app, Roam, was designed to be a one-stop destination for all happenings and information related to, and tailored for, the lesbian community. With the world moving toward the digital age and mobile app development becoming its own category for streamlining information, I wanted to create a platform for consumers to access the information they needed that fit the fast-paced lifestyle of today. More specifically, I wanted to design an app for a travel guide that gave the user all the information and material in one source.

Grizcode: A Web Series About The University Of Montana From The Student Perspective, Darien W. Gostas

Undergraduate Theses, Professional Papers, and Capstone Artifacts

The point of this paper is to explore the development, purpose, and challenges of making the web series, GrizCode. It is not as scientific, as it is a narrative of what came to be. The goal of GrizCode was to paint a picture of what student life is like at the University of Montana, giving tips and life advice while celebrating and parodying what it means to be a “Griz.” It consisted of floating head type interviews of students over a green screen background of animations, with fun upbeat music that would keep the audience engaged and promote a joyful …

It's Slapstick Design, Thanks! Wait! No "Thanks"- Just Slapstick Design ..., Curtis A. Bailey

Theses and Dissertations

I'm arguing for an approach to generating graphic form based on slapstick. Slapstick is a genre of physical comedy involving humorous portrayals of clumsiness, mistakes, and nonsense. I investigate it as an approach to form, content, process, and communication. These methods were used to construct an immersive installation loosely based on The Tibetan Book of the Dead.

Graphic design is expected to function. It does this by conditioning users to its particular patterns or by skillfully implementing familiar patterns. A slapstick approach to graphic design is valuable as a critical tool for disrupting conditioned experiences for promoting empathy by relating …

No Woman Is An Island, Adele Ball

Theses and Dissertations

We have gathered the following pages to archive our time here in Richmond, Virginia. We have been here for two years, growing slowly, moving when needed to new anchorholds to avoid detection or arrest. We scrutinize the urban environment like modern archeologists. We collect stories and speculate about new uses of old things. It is imperative to be resourceful here, and we do so out of necessity but also in the spirit of practice. These pages were made en route, each an exploration of the tools at hand when on the move. The method of creation is just as important …

Loosely Bound, Alexander Martin

Theses and Dissertations

I take a poetic approach to graphic design practice. It is a subjectivist approach, which recognizes our human right to willful interpretation. Designers navigate form, culture, and history like poets through language. We are subjective, exploratory engines drawing formal inspiration from figural and analogical associations. Subjectivity in graphic design practice is complex, however. Subjectivity privileges the interaction between object and individual. When we designers interpret the literal world with the poet’s omni-directional sensitivity, we intentionally and intuitively create objects that accrete inexhaustible, extra-literal value for their audience.

Women At The Crossroads, Women At The Forefront, American Women In Letterpress Printing In The Nineteenth Century, Dianne L. Roman Ms

Theses and Dissertations

The significant role of the female printer in the American home-based print shops during the colonial and early republic periods has been documented in print history, socioeconomic, labor, and women studies, yet with the industrialization of the printing trade, women’s presence is thought to have disappeared. Contrary to the belief that industrialization of the print shop eradicated women’s involvement in skilled employments such as typesetting, the creation of the Women’s Cooperative Printing Union in California and the creation and chartering of the Women’s Typographical Union in New York, both in the late 1860s, clearly indicate that women continued to work …

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

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & 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

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & 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

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & 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 …

Southern Steam Prints: Large Scale, Relief Printmaking, Allison Mueller

Honors College Theses

Southern Steam Prints, a steamroller printmaking festival for Georgia Southern University I directed and organized. The project helped create community involvement in printmaking as an art form, gained notoriety for the Betty Foy Sanders Department of Art and especially the Print, Paper, and Book Arts Program. The project taught valuable skill mastery in relief print techniques, commercialism, and leadership for the kinds of event that artists plan, jury, and participate in, in the professional world. The Southern Steam Prints festival took place on April 23, 2016. Artworks created at the event were exhibited at the Center of Art and Theater …

Egyptianization: Culture Hacking As A Method, Hadeer Omar

Theses and Dissertations

In a broad sense, cultures undergo a metamorphoses due to the external influences and systems impacting the evolution of internal identities. Conversely, Individuals within cultures react to those external influences and systems.The act of hacking a culture is an opportunity to challenge an existing or imported system in order to bring about change and improvement. An aspect of culture hacking is to create messages of satire or irony in order to criticize, or completely reject established systems within cultures.

Post Arab spring, Egyptians practiced culture hacking by applying their cultural tools to external systems and influences, producing a process of …

Glenside Fire Company Website Modernization, Jennifer Clark, Irene Patterson, David J. Cox Jr.

Senior Capstone Theses

Glenside Fire Company #1, known as GFC, is one of five volunteer fire companies operating in Cheltenham Township, providing services not limited to fire suppression, search and rescue, emergency medical services assistance, and fire safety education. GFC was looking to create a new website in order to promote volunteer firefighting, recruit new members, and fundraise, as well as provide a place where current members can keep records of events and trainings, using a public and member-only view. The website was created using a Bootstrap framework, in order to maximize usability across many platforms. The website will be easily updated with …

La Bande Dessinée À L’Épreuve Du Génocide Au Rwanda : État Des Lieux Critique D’Un Mode D’Expression Original, Markus Arnold, Karel Plaiche

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

20 years after the genocide of the Tutsis, one observes within the artistic production dealing with these traumatic events the presence of several comics (or bande dessinée). Yet is this specific mode of expression which often remains associated with lightness, humour and caricature capable to address in a credible fashion such delicate topics as pain, cruelty and death ? How do comics “translate” this 1994 tragedy for the purpose of critically raising awareness and providing memorial accounts while respecting the reader’s sensitivity ? Is there an “appropriate” depiction and where is the frontier between sensational, reliable and emotionally convincing portrayal …