Digital Commons Network^™

Green Relationship, Fadel Imad

Theses and Dissertations

Green Relationship is a design solution attempting to raise awareness toward the environment and reduce consumerism. Waste generation and pollution have become major concerns of many governments, municipalities, organizations and individuals around the world since they are affecting human wellbeing and the environment. As an MFA student with VCUQatar, I chose to use design to contribute in protecting the environment hoping to make a difference in life. The thesis includes a research and a design component. The research explores the recycling programs and facilities in Qatar, the governmental and private sector actions toward waste generation and collection, as well as …

Hybrid Gulf — Excavating Future Identities, Robert Canak

Theses and Dissertations

This Project examines the coexistence of two cultures?–?in this case the host Gulf, and the imported Western?–?and addresses certain problems that still need attention. This Project celebrates the creation of the third, hybrid, culture as a result of their intermingling. In this Research, Postcolonial Theory? and Transitional Object Theory? are used as conceptual frameworks, and are combined with Archaeology and Design as a practice. On a personal level, the Project evolved out of my cross-cultural origin and experiences. On an academic level, the Project serves as an experiment, trying to fill the gaps in the Gulf region’s search for identity. …

Anti-Heroics, Modesty, And Bad Taste, Philip Hinge

Theses and Dissertations

My thesis work revolves around investigating painting’s relationship with “bad taste” and heroism. By comparing my paintings to illustrative depictions of “heroism”, artists who turn bad art good, ideas concerning modesty, humor, and invention I will contextualize my stance towards “heroism” and bad taste. By establishing my relationship to the aforementioned examples I will trace the growth of my work over the past few years and discuss how its role within contemporary painting has changed as well as how it interacts with various cultural references.

Studies Of The Middle Class, Scott S. Stanard

Theses and Dissertations

I create oil paintings and drypoints that bring attention to scenes of American middle class life. I present crowds of people engaged in community activities and festivals. This enables me to depict a cross section of the residents of a given region. I also create a counterpoint to these peopled gatherings by painting and drawing the exteriors of middle class homes. In my work, I attempt to imbue a sense of intrigue and pathos.

I work from candid photos that I take of people and their living spaces. In these photos, I modify and delete elements to optimize narrative and …

The Troublesome Document, Stanley Wolukau-Wanambwa

Theses and Dissertations

An essay concerning the development of documentary photography, its relationship to political norms, conventions of realism in visual culture, and the form of the photographic book.

Side A, Side B, Hong Zhang

Theses and Dissertations

I believe that aural and visual language can contribute and inspire one another. Sound evokes the emotions and the senses. It is a catalyst for our imagination. It can be combined with imagery for the purpose of communication, harmoniously or contrastively. Both have corresponding characteristics—color/timbre, brightness/pitch, length/duration, scale/volume, composition/rhythm—and thus provide ways of transforming each other back and forth as input and output. Computer technology has increased the ease of transforming and manipulating the two. In my thesis project, I explore sound visualization, sound/image transformation and combination.

Visualization, Viewer And Emotion: An Empirical Study Of Cognition And Affective Responses To Infographics Used For Crisis Communication, Sean M. Stewart

Theses and Dissertations

A 3 (crisis response strategy) x 3 (medium) factorial design experiment was conducted to determine if information graphics conveyed through online news sources may be more beneficial for organizational reputations during some crisis situations than the use of news videos and text-based news stories. Variables examined include cognitive and affective appraisal, third-person effect, behavioral response and crisis response strategy.

Recent research in organizational crisis communications has pointed to the fact that more information is needed regarding how individuals react cognitively and affectively to crisis communications. Current crisis communications literature is also sparse concerning the behavioral aspects of crisis message reception …

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 …

Exploring Environments, Idil Cilingiroglu

Theses and Dissertations

My search for creative inspiration often leads to explorations in natural and built environments. Being physically immersed in an environment offers endless vantage points, as well as points of focus; allowing all senses to function as receptors of surrounding data. Observations stimulate thoughts and ideas, which inspire experiments. Projects are born, sometimes out of the smallest details. In a series of projects I explore the possibilities of using physical environments as primary source of inspiration and input in the creation of tools that function in design contexts.

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 …

In Perceiving Monsters: A Costume Design For Caryl Churchill's The Skriker, Joshua Quinn

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this thesis is to document my process for a costume design of The Skriker by Caryl Churchill. Included is the design account confronted in telling the story, analyzing the script, developing concepts and looks, and final rendering of the characters. The paper finishes with a reflection on how the design served the script and my conclusions on its success.

Visual Communication On Cajamarca Ceramics From Pre-Hispanic Peru, 1000 - 1460 Ce, Jeanette Nicewinter

Theses and Dissertations

This project analyzes a database of 118 ceramic sherds that were excavated from the Late Intermediate Period site of Yanaorco, located in the Cajamarca region of the north highlands in present-day Peru, for vessel form, style, and imagery. Through the placement of these sherds within the context of inter-community feasting events that took place at Yanaorco, fineware ceramic vessels are interpreted as prestige items that were utilized by the elite to further differentiate themselves from other community citizens. By examining key examples of representational and non-representational imagery depicted on the sherds, an understanding of the social agency of the vessel …

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.

Experience As An Experiment, James Walker

Theses and Dissertations

My work is an exploration of new media that demonstrates the influence a community has on visual communication. The community reveals content as objects go unnoticed after they become a permanent part of the landscape and assumptions are made from cultural archetypes. Through exploration, immersion, and reflection, I am able to recognize the invisible and expected, establish a familiarity with a community, and design responses that communicate directly to it.

Blue Book, Daniel Cole

Theses and Dissertations

Alain De Botton writes in The Architecture of Happiness, that “any object of design will give off an impression of the psychological and moral attitudes it supports.” Interpreting design then is done by understanding the attitudes of the designer, which either will or will not resonate with the viewer. I may consider the formal and conceptual merits of an object of design, but ultimately my attitudes determine whether the object will have resonance with me. These “attitudes” are, anthropologically speaking, values: what a person finds most good, proper, or desirable in life. Values are the key to the creation of …

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 …

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 …

Wanderings, Jetter Jorge Silva

Theses and Dissertations

While it implies aimless movement, the act of wandering is an act of discovery and can become a search for the unexpected. Wandering, as a metaphor for making, creates opportunities to work in ways where the final outcome is unknown. This can be accomplished by the creation of methods and instructions designed for wandering-the act of discovery. In the field of design, these ideas can be incorporated as methods for making that guide the design process in ultimately unknowable ways, resulting in products that bear little trace of preconception. The role of chance and indeterminacy as methods for relinquishing control …

Autonomous Systems, Karolis Kosas

Theses and Dissertations

The ubiquity of digital media provides an unprecedented possibility to redefine the process and methods of design. Through experience from a series of creative projects, I investigate how certain aspects of the web allow for design to attain a degree of autonomy, thus producing results that go beyond anticipation and expertise of the author. Utilizing an unlimited capacity to store the content and retrieve immediate feedback, the designer’s role can be shifted to that of an initiator defining rules and boundaries, from which the process can evolve independently based on the input of users and data. The design output in …

What?: Visual Interpretations Of The Miscommunication Between The Hearing And Deaf, Virginia Shou

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis visualizes the communication challenges both latent and obvious of my daily life as a hard of hearing individual. By focusing on a variety of experiences and examples I demonstrate the implications of a hard of hearing individual’s life. The prints, objects and videos that I have created for my visual thesis aim to enrich the understanding of a broader public on issues regularly faced by Deaf people. At the heart of my work my goal is to generate mutual empathy between the hearing and the Deaf.

Between Floors: The Ups And Downs Of Mediated Narrative, Melinda White

Theses and Dissertations

“Between Floors: The Ups and Downs of Mediated Narrative” and the accompanying creative remediation project, “Between Floors: Love and Other Blood Related Diseases,” meld theory and practice of print with electronic literature and installation art. I argue that as the medium changes, the narrative is transformed. The narrative can be reconstructed and pieced together as the reader or viewer becomes increasingly involved, even embodied within the work. This embodiment is what Nathaniel Stern calls “Moving and thinking and feeling” (1) and can result in a more direct emotional experience. The form, structure, and medium (sjužet) rely on authorial intention, yet …

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 …

Teaching English Language Learners In The Art Classroom: A Survey Of Approaches, Alana Greer

Theses and Dissertations

This study consisted of an online survey of members of the National Art Education Association Elementary Division in which 29 participants answered questions related to their instruction of English language learners in the elementary art classroom. Four participants participated in follow-up interviews as the researcher sought to answer the research questions: What pedagogical and curricular adaptations in the art classroom may be effective strategies for teaching English language learners? What are the perceived challenges of having a linguistically diverse art classroom? Participants offered a variety of pedagogical adaptations but suggested few curricular adaptations. Participants revealed challenges related to their teacher …

A Tale To Tell: The Charisma Of Narrative Art, Cynthia Mirabile

Theses and Dissertations

My artwork combines the power of narrative with the sculptural form, and I encourage the viewer to interact with my work. I use the magnetic, hypnotic effect that stories can have over us. My narratives are designed to draw the reader into a willing suspension of disbelief. It is often whimsical because childlike things give people certain permissions of joy and abandon. I use anthropomorphism to invite the viewer to handle my pieces in order to create an intimacy between the viewer and the artwork.

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 …

Searching For A Soul, Michael O'Neal

Theses and Dissertations

The abstract pieces I create now are part of an ongoing evolution in my work to arrive at a visual balance between rigid structure and organic movement. Initially, they were intended as a departure from representational imagery to allow for more focus on color harmonies and structural balance. After more than twenty-five years of rendering objects and things, it became too predictable and “safe” for me to take my work seriously. As it has been suggested that most abstraction derives from reality in some form, I was intrigued by those rings of light we see when closing our eyes. I …

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.