Digital Commons Network^™

Comics For Children?, Elizabeth Surbeck

2012 Awards for Excellence in Student Research & Creative Activity - Documents

Graphic narratives around the world have found lhemselves today beirlg read by certain types of readers. Literature scholars focus on elements such as character and plot structure, occupying their minds with what makes literature great and what some graphic nurratives share with that great literature. With a similar attitude, art historians focus on style, composition, and other artistic elements in graphic narratives that connect them to the art history timeline that goes back to cave paintings. Another type of audience exists, one that does not consider what graphic narratives are and whether they belong to an existing formal area …

Media Revolution: Early Prints From The Sheldon Museum Of Art, Gregory Nosan, Alison G. Stewart

Zea E-Books Collection

In the digital age, when videos are streamed and books can be read electronically, it is hard to fathom the revolutionary impact that printed images had when they first appeared in Europe around 1400. Their introduction changed forever the traditional practice of manually crafting images one by one, creating a world in which pictures could be reproduced almost without limit on a new material called paper, expanding the possibilities and audiences for images and texts of all kinds. This publication, which brings to light little-seen masterpieces from the Sheldon Museum of Art’s collection, explores the three major print techniques of …

Identification Of Perceived 21st Century Graphic Design Skills, Content Knowledge, And Tools Needed In An Effective University-Level Graphic Design Program, Amanda W. Bridges

Education Dissertations and Projects

The purpose of this study was to identify 21st century skills, content knowledge, and tools needed in an effective university-level graphic design program. Inconsistencies in the graphic design curriculum, fueled by the increasingly large number of programs and concentrations and the inability to track graduates, were some of the issues that led to a need for this study.

This study was an expansion of a previous 2006 study conducted by Shyang-Yuh Wang, which took place in Kansas and Missouri. This current study used a modified Delphi Technique in which perceptions from university-level graphic design educators and industry professionals from North …

A Type Of Communication What To Watch For In U.S. Presidential Campaign Promotional Ephemera & Typographic Choices, Amanda C.R. Clark

Library Faculty Scholarship

Facets of graphic design, logo design, typefaces, and other images absorbed through rapid cognition have a psychological effect on the viewer. Well known to advertisers, these stylistic typographic choices transmit a powerful message to viewers and influence their impressions of the product (Coleman and Wasike 2003: 1). Visual design decisions may persuade at unquestioned and unconscious levels, and they may be indelibly imbued with their historical identity. How then do these choices, when applied to the promotional materials of political campaigns, affect the stylistic impressions made by printed materials, such as posters, bumper stickers, lawn signs, and buttons? By examining …

Articulations Of Irish Language Poetry As Multimodal Texts, Brenda Duggan

Conference Papers

Abstract

In October of last year, visual communication students at Technological University Dublin took part in an exhibition of Irish language literature texts that were imaginatively extended, exploring an array of new literacies. Taking the Irish language texts as a starting point for this project, students creatively explored print, visual, digital and material modes to extend the meaning of the poetry.

This paper explores, from a social semiotic perspective the creative potential this multimodal work offers design pedagogy in how we frame and articulate meaning across both print and digital media design education. With an emphasis on an ensemble of …

Material Meaning, Anne Jordan

Theses and Dissertations

The synthesis of old and new, analog and digital, and hand- and computer-based methods provides designers with an opportunity to work beyond the constraints of the computer and take advantage of the aesthetic effects that actual materials bring to visual communication. Designers who choose to actively participate in their process – bringing the aesthetic effects of working materially into the realm of the digital – will likely learn to reject an approach that relies too heavily on passive digital tools. Active participation in the design process can extend our creative vocabulary and humanize visual communication.

Through Process, Mitchell Goldstein

Theses and Dissertations

At the core of any designer’s activity is the process they engage with to create design. Process is not only a way to get from an idea to a completed work, it is also what determines our attitude towards design. This is the place where both the design and the designer are created. The gray area between nothing and something is where we go to discover design, and in turn to discover who we are and what matters to us. In this thesis I am investigating the nebulous place between ideas and things, thoughts and artifacts, and being just a …

Typographic And Image Explorations, Ben Rupp

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

These typographic and image based designs explore multiple components of design including: legibility, manipulation, communication, and conventionalism with an emphasis on information graphics. Drawing from influences of the Futurist designers and Dadaist typography, I take the mundane details of an object such as a baseball or car to create excessive amounts of visually stimulating graphics. Through this process of gathering detailed information, I take photographs, draw by hand and scan images to fully understand and portray an objects identity until I feel satisfied that the objects visual potential has been exhausted. These personal expressions are combined to form printed material …

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.

Aural Landscapes, Brandi Price

Theses and Dissertations

Music and design draw upon innate parallels concerned with the creation and existence of space. By acknowledging the roles of both the visual and the aural in my design process as input and output, I attempt to achieve a deeper understanding of my intuition as a visual communicator. I believe that the visual and aural are linked—existing harmoniously together. The collected works present ever-evolving ideas on visualizing the experience of sound.

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 …

Understanding Design, Joshua Reese

Theses and Dissertations

Somewhere along the way, I found that graphic design in professional practice was becoming synonymous with form and style, and losing its connection with concept and audience. I’m trying to find a way back.

Memory Created, Maria Fabrizio

Theses and Dissertations

Memory is like afternoon light penetrating the windows of a fast moving car. The light coming through the trees creates images, reveals objects and faces, and introduces fluctuating sensations of warmth and coolness. Sometimes these images appear in logical sequences and at other times they are fleeting, surreal, and ambiguous. While memories are often presented linearly as fact, in actuality our stories only grasp at the truth. They are fragmented, imagined, and rearranged. By examining the intersection of reality and imagination in memories we see retelling as an act of creativity.

Visualizing Cultural Impermanence Through Entropic Design, Clifford Meena Khalili

Theses and Dissertations

Entropy is a process of gradual decline as a system loses the strength to maintain itself. It begins with disorder and results in complete transformation. As a multi-cultural American, it has been my experience that the maintenance of my Iranian heritage parallels this concept. A method of visual communication that incorporates entropy is able to express notions of impermanence, disorder and transformation. This project is focused on employing entropy in the process of design and image making by using the transformation of my cultural identity as primary content.

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.

Naked Truth Soap For Men: Brand Identity, Jenna Passmore

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

The essential idea of this project is to develop an entire brand identity for a fictional soap company for men that I created called Naked Truth. A brand identity encompasses visual components like logo, color and design aesthetic that help a brand stick in a consumer’s mind. In the real world of advertising, the concept of a brand identity at the forefront of any advertising a company releases. Consumers are inundated with hundreds of ads everyday, so it is important for a company to know who they are and whom they want to sell their products to in order to …

Dit Graduate Exhibition Show Of The School Of Art, Design And Printing 2010, Dublin Institute Of Technology

DIT Publications

Exhibition committee staff Kieran Corcoran Peter Jones Paul White Robert Tully Neville Knott John Short Brenda Dermody Clare Bell Brenda Duggan Annette Buckley Pat Muldowny Joe Hanly Exhibition commitee student representatives Lucy Clarke Margaret Flynn Kate Geoghegan Gavin Gogarty Fiona O'Keeffe Cian McKenna Becky O'Hara Catalogue concept and design Paul Woods - www.paultheillustrator.com Maeve Keane - www.andstudio.ie Photography by Gillian Buckley. Typeset in DIN 9pt and 24pt. Printed on 140gsm Revive 50/50 by Future Print, Dublin. DIT Graduate Exhibition 2010

The Design Brief: Conceptual Tool For Visual Resolution Of Professional Design Problems, Jason Andrew Neal

Theses and Dissertations

In this thesis I show how I have integrated the design brief concept with my art philosophy to help guide the exploration and visual resolution of three academic visual projects. The design brief is the most significant project management tool I have added to my design philosophy and production approach during my graduate studies. It has not changed the art I create, but rather has changed how I plan for and manage the production of my art. The brief consists of a series of questions that I can apply to all design decisions to make sure those decisions remain consistent …

Unseen, Sohee Kwon

Theses and Dissertations

Photography conveys informative data, aesthetic value, and a conceptual message very much like graphic design. In the hands of the photographer, the viewfinder of a camera becomes an editing tool. Editing by point of view, use of color and cropping determines a great deal about the communication made by imagery. In my creative project, I will explore photography as a means to generate form, concept, and content. As a result of this exploration, I expect to find new ways of approaching graphic design problems. My goal is to develop themes that combine aspects of photography and graphic design. Themes could …

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, …

Mobile Exhibition System, Sanford Jillian Columbus

Theses and Dissertations

Through the development and design of a Mobile Exhibition System (MES) in this thesis, I will demonstrate the benefits and possibilities of a flexible and mobile system within an exhibition environment. A flexible system will be able to adapt to a wide range of content, while at the same time, maintaining a synergy between its form and function. By the reuse and reappropriation of shipping containers as the exhibition envelope, the goal of mobility can be achieved, reaching out to those who might not otherwise experience learning through an exhibition environment.

Design By Accident, Mengfu Zhang

Theses and Dissertations

Accident is a metaphor for life. From an arbitrary point in time, we potentially preview the entirety of existence. There is a Chinese idiom called “ blessing or bane,” which implies that a misfortune may perhaps soon turn into a blessing. Focusing on accident as a design method implies making the best out of a bad situation. An accident reveals invisible circumstances and potentialities in the world, both familiar and unfamiliar. Looking into the unpredictable world, I can begin to release my control, take a breath, and see what might happen if I do not fight the situation. I am …

Crafting Authenticity, Allison N. Schumacher

Theses and Dissertations

Authenticity is what we want from the world around us, from others, and crucially from ourselves and what we make. As it relates to graphic design, I define authenticity as a perceived match between form and purpose. For the designer, its quality is found in the process of simultaneously developing a concept and crafting the design/object.

Forming Process : Design Through Layered Visual Systems And Multiple Collection Methods : A Thesis, Jen Magathan

Masters Theses

"Do not hide the structure, celebrate it in the form" ; "Approach design from multiple points of view."

These adages, so important in my architectural training, reverberate with intricate practicality in my work as a graphic designer, both as a way of building my design and as a means of developing a design process which explores multiple ways of organizing content through visual systems. Forming Process is defined by three conditions: celebrating the visual systems which organize the design, archiving content from multiple ways of collecting, and creating work by which the process of design is implicit in the design …

In Pursuit Of Harmony: Calligraphy & Typography, Feifei Fan

Theses and Dissertations

Chinese calligraphy and Western typography have been evolving for around five thousands years. During this time, they have developed quite different characteristics. Compared with the geometrical form and precision of Western printing types, Chinese calligraphy features abstract shapes and spontaneous strokes. These differences result in a gap that prevents a harmonious and organic relationship between them. This project explores the possibilities of combining these two historical visual systems, demonstrates specific methods and approaches for creating compelling formal relationships, and endeavors to establish a friendly, organic and harmonious dialogue between Chinese calligraphy and Western typography. The outcome of this project is …

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.

The Dismissive Actually, Alexander Egner

Theses and Dissertations

This project is about giving in to the impulse of ideas. My mind is a little messy and cluttered, swirling with bits of stimuli. The spark of an idea happens when the bits collide. I prefer not to initiate or control the process so much as keep it fed and active. Through graphic design, I bear witness to these ideas, giving them form as a series of visible, tangible objects. Viewed comprehensively, the work establishes an ongoing chronicle of my creative life and mind.

Modes Of Participation: Co-Creative Approaches To The Design Process, Carissa Henriques

Theses and Dissertations

This project explores the notion of participation within the graphic design and problem-solving process. Through projects using generative tools and collaboration, I explore ways to instigate controlled participation from designers and non-designers. I observe and document how the methods and means of participation affect the creative process during these projects.

I Read My Mind Through You: Designing Personal Communication In The Public Realm, Or, I Made This Thesis For You, Mary Banas

Masters Theses

As graphic designers, we're trained to be rational, systematic, and concise. In contrast, human emotion is irrational, passionate, and complex. By projecting personal experience into the public sphere, this study explores the tension between these two mindsets. I Read My Mind Through You elevates the voice of the banal to a call for empathy and renewed sentimentality.

I Read My Mind Through You elevated the voice of the banal to a call for empathy and renewed sentimentality.

This body of work originates from a love affair with turns of phrase, an affinity for the absurd, and the current cultural obsession …

Find Meaning Make Meaning, Karen Stein

Theses and Dissertations

Employing the designer William Morris as a source of inspiration, this project seeks to explore the call for nature and beauty as a part of our lives. Moreover, it interweaves the necessity for experience of the sensual world (the five senses) with the cerebral world (a requisite to igniting the internal imagination)—a concept embodied in the form of the book. It advocates a redefining of the book as an imagination sculpture (the external and the internal) reflecting this new definition.