Illustration Commons^™

The Uses Of Dramaturgical Research In Cinematic Storytelling, Asset Design, And Adaptation In Animation, Delaney L. Walker

All Theses

“The Black Hair” is a creative project that explores the convergence of cinematic adaptation, dramaturgical research, and animation design in retelling a traditional Japanese short folktale from the Heian Era. Rooted in the practice of theatrical dramaturgy, this thesis advocates for a research-driven creative pipeline by developing a culturally respectful and historically grounded approach to developing cinematic storyboards. By thoroughly examining the chronicles of history and the sociocultural context, the project seeks to foster deeper cultural appreciation while reintroducing a lesser-known narrative to modern audiences through a visual medium. The project draws stylistic and narrative inspiration from iconic Japanese filmmakers …

The Automation Of Aesthetics: Artificial Intelligence And Commercial Artists In North Brooklyn, Devin Sudweeks

Theses and Dissertations

Corporate elites expect generative AI to replace commercial artists but overlook their social and aesthetic expertise. This ethnographic study explores how Brooklyn-based commercial artists narrate their value amid automation, emphasizing embodied presence in cultural scenes, visual language, style, and authenticity, skills not easily mechanized but vital to aesthetic economies.

Totality Fractal, Heather L. Cook

Journal of Humanistic Mathematics

This fractal was inspired by the Total Solar Eclipse on April 8, 2024. Here, the sun and the moon are represented when in totality.

Artwork From Animation (Ani216 Animation Studio), Adrian Bruch

Staff Scholarship - Australia & Dubai

A series of pen and ink and photograph collages inspired by my teaching and the scene I created as part of the ANI216 Animation Studio group project. These were made as a response to the invitation to exhibit 3 artworks in a group exhibition. They were all subsequently sold.

Frieze Symmetry Patterns Of Pennsylvania German Fraktur, Lorelei Koss

LASER Journal

Fraktur is an American folk art developed by German-speaking communities in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Ohio, Virginia, Maryland, and North Carolina during the 18th and 19th centuries. This art form features ornate calligraphy combined with illustrations of flowers, birds, angels, and geometric border designs. It was often used for birth and baptismal certificates, religious texts, educational materials, and public notices. Fraktur commonly incorporates frieze pattern designs. Artistic designs based on frieze patterns appear across a wide range of cultures, and research has shown that cultural groups tend to favor certain types of frieze patterns. This paper investigates which types of frieze …

The Delicate Balance, Catherine Toal

Quill & Scope

No abstract provided.

Mindful Marcelo: The Process Of Writing And Illustrating A Culturally-Specific Children's Book For Early Psychoeducation, Liz Romero-Herrera

University Honors Theses

Socio-emotional learning (SEL) is imperative for young children to learn prosocial skills and how to identify and regulate their emotions. Most children begin to develop these skills in early childhood and depend on caregivers and teachers to model them. However, caregiver and teacher biases related to child gender and race can limit equitable access to high-quality SEL, placing male students of color at higher risk for maladaptive coping strategies. To address this gap, this thesis documents the creation of a culturally sensitive children's book focused on SEL concepts for young Latino boys. Throughout this thesis, I documented the process of …

Seattle's New Edition, Kyle Gray

Graphic Communication

My project is to create and develop the branding of the NBA's newest franchise: The Seattle Grunge. Grunge is a genre of alternative rock that emerged in the mid-1980s particularly in the city of Seattle. With my team, I am looking for seamless cohesion with other logos in the Association while establishing an emotional connection between the fanbase and its city. The project will consist of a complete creation of the team’s logo/branding, court, 3 jersey designs (home/away/city connect), merchandise, season ticket packaging, and a full marketing report (team logo exposure/connection to the city).

How To Walk On Water: Living Through The Absurd, Esther Du

Masters Theses

Set in a speculative world submerged by water, this thesis constructs a fragmented, nonlinear narrative that reflects on survival, memory, and displacement in the aftermath of catastrophe. Through three interwoven chapters—The Outcast, The Researcher, and The World—the project explores the emotional and psychological landscapes of individuals navigating a post-apocalyptic existence where the past is irretrievable and the future uncertain. Using an interdisciplinary form of visual storytelling, writing, and sound, the work draws from personal experience and collective trauma to examine how people reconstruct identity and meaning after loss. Rather than offering a definitive answer to existential …

Welcome To My Mind Palace: The Power Of Fantastical Thinking, Sadie Levine

Masters Theses

What follows is a record of my efforts to make the magic and horrors of my internal world tangible and shareable. The brain constructs hyper-specific fictional realities from childhood to adulthood, yet the scientific study of the mind often forgoes the subjective and the visual. I offer a complementary exploration of the mind - one that is highly visual and based on my own experiences, yet still contextualized in psychological research. Finding the magic in everyday life, and by extension, retreating into alternate realities, is a conscious choice I make, but I have not always had the option to choose. …

Ib-Adat, Anum Naseer

Masters Theses

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Note Of An Image-Game Maker, Yuanhui Li

Masters Theses

This notebook archives the process of cases I turn images into games, and my own evolution as an image-game creator along the way. A clarification: image games are not images made for games, but images as games. This is a diary, a scrapbook, a message record, an album, a specimen folder. Here, I attempt to analyze the experiences that make up my artistic body. To unfold why image games have become my intuition. Or, even if I never find the answer, to leave an anchor for the future me. Ideally, one of the four editions of this notebook will always …

Unnatural Nature: A Visual Artist’S Reflection On Myth, Medium, And Feminine Being, Rong Xu

Masters Theses

My artistic journey has been guided by a childhood fascination with mythology and how our ancestors interpreted the natural world. As my practice evolved toward digital media, I began questioning what "nature" truly means—is it an objective reality or a construct filtered through cultural lenses and personal experience?

The transition from traditional to digital tools—from physical brushes to Apple Pencil and Wacom stylus—removed much of the spontaneous dialogue with materials that once mirrored nature's own randomness. While I initially celebrated my ability to simulate traditional techniques digitally, I now recognize this transformation demands a fundamental reconsideration of how artists connect …

A Personal Manual Of Escapism, Qing Wen

Masters Theses

In this fast-paced, information-saturated era, avoidance has become a common mechanism of self-preservation. Confronted with global crises and structural instability, the current generation increasingly adopt a pessimistic stance toward the future: some retreat into virtual worlds, others find themselves unable to bear the weight of real-life responsibilities, and many turn to art as a private sanctuary. But is avoidance only a pejorative term?

It wasn’t until recently that I realized, nearly all of my creative work has stemmed from a place, or an action of escape. The imagined worlds I’ve built, the spaces I created to flee from reality—without knowing …

Show Time!, Georgia Oldham

Masters Theses

Time is always ticking and never easy to hold on to. Luckily, twisting over sketchbooks and doodling in page margins, sequential artists are on a mission to capture it for everybody. They’re even going to tell you a story along the way. This thesis explores my relationship to sequential art as it relates to time, storytelling, accessibility, and the performing arts.

Automatonophobia, Adrian Bruch

Staff Scholarship - Australia & Dubai

These artworks were created as a direct result of my teaching the ANI216 Animation Studio. In the process of devising ways to incorporate photographic imagery into an animation, I developed a multi-plane system where I could create layers in Adobe Photoshop and combine them with original cartoon characters in After Effects and then animate them.

These artworks for an exhibition at the Garden Gallery (Royal Botanic Gardens, Sydney) are imaginary stills inspired by the actual animation. All three were sold.

Notetaking Reimagined: The Impact Of Combining Text And Visuals For Effective Learning, Sarah J. Mussetter

Art 895 Research Papers

This Mixed-Methods Narrative Case Study examines previous research on the effects of visual/ illustrative notes and their effect on knowledge coding, retention, and retrieval processes. It adds to current research in the form of a case study of a high school advanced photography course in Livingston, MT and the effect that adding visuals to notetaking practices affects student performance and memory throughout the semester. This study also proposes a method of introduction to visual notetaking that can be implemented in classrooms regardless of subject matter.

The Vastness Of The Canyon, Opal Weber

The Echo

No abstract provided.

World-Inspired Patterns 2, Hai Tran Nguyen

The Echo

No abstract provided.

Blue-Footed Boobies, Anna Timbes

The Echo

No abstract provided.