Art and Design Commons^™

Improving Academic Success: Creating A College Planning Resource For Students, Hannah Grunden

Honors Projects

Academic performance of students is a major concern for colleges, especially with the recent COVID-19 pandemic. Research has shown that active involvement, the development of self-regulation skills, and improved mental health all have a considerable impact on college students’ academic success. Colleges like Bowling Green State University need to consider how they can use these factors and leverage resources to improve student performance. In this project, a solution is proposed in the form of a college/personal planner which is directly based off research on early academic success. While further, more specific research is needed to fully understand the issue and …

Packaging Rebrand For Cal Poly Creamery, Lauren Mindolovich

Graphic Communication

My senior project is a packaging rebrand for Cal Poly Creamery. The project consists of redesigning the ice cream packaging and logo, and creating marketing collateral, such as stickers and posters, to increase brand awareness.

This project was a lot of fun because I got to apply all of my GrC skills into this project. In addition, this is the first time I’ve created, planned, and executed a project from start to finish. Throughout the quarter, I tracked my progress and made the appropriate changes to ensure that I complete the project within the 10-week deadline.

Digital Brand Identity Design From A User Experience Perspective, Isaiah Harwood

Undergraduate Honors Theses

As a graphic designer and as a creative in general, my interest has always been in the conceptualization and execution of brand identities. I am most comfortable as a designer when I am working in the realm of art direction, and most of my design heroes and inspirations are legendary art directors and designers like Paula Scher, Paul Rand, and Michael Bierut. Logo and wordmark design in particular are among my favorite aspects of design, and finding ways to creatively apply these foundational aspects of a brand to each stage of the user experience is exciting to me. The stages …

Humanizing Brutalism: Graphics To Identify, Inform, Orient, Interpret And Inspire, Whitney Perkins

UMassBRUT Community

Despite the reputation of Brutalist architecture being somewhat cold and imposing, the original interiors of these buildings were often covered in brightly-colored signage. In the process of renovating Paul Rudolph's Claire T. Carney Library at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, designer Whitney Perkins drew upon the colors and graphics of the 1960s and 70s in order to construct a bold program of wayfinding, signage and tapestries for the building. This talk looks at some of the influences and processes involved in designing and fabricating this signage.

Rip Curl: Community Activism For The Coast (The Ux Phase, Rip Curl And Sustainability, The Ui Phase), John Delacruz

Assignment Prompts

ADV 132 enables students to explore the craft and process of user experience and user interface design. They develop their skills within the context of a specific brief. The aim is to offer students the opportunity to immerse themselves in a particular problem and come up with creative solutions that will come to life on digital media platforms.

Community Table Project, Kohar Scott

Assignment Prompts

Food insecurity is a real issue unfortunately faced by many students at SJSU. The SJSU Spartan Food Pantry is a walk-in, full-service, staffed, food assistance program that provides a resource for students to receive non-perishable goods, fresh produce, and refrigerated items to eligible students. Imagine that our SJSU Spartan Food Pantry was redesigned with a more ecology-focused "systems approach" like loopstore.com.

Designed by students and for students, what do you want to see available and how can you improve the package and delivery? Pick a product that you would like to see available at the SJSU Spartan Food …

Build Your Own Body Mod: Empowerment Through Prototyping And Design, Anaiss Arreola, Katherine R. Ganim

Journal of Science Education for Students with Disabilities

When you don’t have a hand, what could you have instead? This article introduces the impact of inviting youth with disabilities to learn tools and technology to design their own solutions and advocate for their own future. This approach to programming is rooted in a mindset of designing WITH, not FOR. Not only are design outcomes improved when users are incorporated into the process, but this approach has been shown to improve confidence in creating one’s own solutions. These programs include hands-on “design-your-own-body-mod” workshops, as well as a budding inclusive design consultancy led by youth with disabilities. Through this programming, …

Listening To Current Practice: Patient Involvement In The Pharmaceutical Packaging Design Process, Giana Carli Lorenzini, Annika Olsson, Andreas Larsson

Journal of Applied Packaging Research

Multiple functional challenges in the use of pharmaceutical packaging reveal a great need of packaging to be designed inclusively. This study investigates patient involvement in the pharmaceutical packaging design process by analysing interview data from representatives of the pharmaceutical and packaging industry. Four main themes related to patient involvement were uncovered: patient expertise levels, patient involvement modes, factors encouraging patient involvement, and factors discouraging patient involvement. Passive patient involvement modes were found to be dominant due to regulations and a traditional perspective regarding physical testing. However, active patient involvement modes were identified, motivated by empathy and understanding of the lives …

How Mixed Reality Will Impact Product Design, Wyatt Coe

Frameless

Mixed reality technology promises to merge our digital and physical worlds, unlocking new realms of experience and design. Designers must consider how this will impact future products and experiences now, to identify the most desirable solutions and applications of this technology. The capability of software to simulate reality could fundamentally shift the way we produce and experience physical and digital products, allowing for simplified physical products that support digital experiences.

2+2=Cake: A Book Of Conversations About Possibilities In Business And Art, Elizabeth Ann Alspach

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

2+2=CAKE is a toolkit for people interested in creating their own economic container to support their livelihood. Calling upon the entrepreneurial experience of artists and creatives who founded or run organizations, the book and accompanying workbook and motivational posters serve as an incubator, buoy, and affirming resource for those looking to build the economic container in which they make their livelihood.

Native App Ux With A Social Design Emphasis, Katya Rozanova

Open Educational Resources

This course is designed to teach students how to design user experiences (UX) for native applications for mobile devices while considering what types of digital products can and should be put out into the world as tools for the day-to-day, as speculative art projects, or as forms of resistance to existing systems in place. The course focuses on usability heuristics, research (human-centered design methodologies) and competitive analysis, information architecture, rapid prototyping and usability testing. Students will familiarize themselves with native UI elements in Apple and Android platforms and design for one of the platforms of their choice. They will learn …

Inside The Bubble 2.0, Sunny Yuqing Ma

Masters Theses

As a designer, I use speculation to observe. I use design to express. I want to hit people's souls directly. I want to create unexpected sparks through relaxed storytelling.

Katti-Batti : A Digital Tool For Young Adolescents To Transgress The Limitations Of Gender Socialization Through Empathy & Friendship, Chetan Dusane

Masters Theses

The genesis of this project lies in the personal experiences that led me to believe that the culturally learned and perceived gender roles, norms, and expectations limit a person’s health, educational, professional, economic, and social abilities.

The work began by finding the evidence connecting the learned, perceived gender roles, norms, and allied cultural expectations to the ability to think freely. The research revealed the limiting effects of gender roles and norms on self-identity, personal belief systems, and a place’s culture. The study further led to uncovering the link between limiting personal belief systems and cultural environment to the lack of …

Living Objects, Katie Tzu Hua Huang

Masters Theses

Sometimes, I find myself sunk into my memories, during daytime when the sun illuminates through the seam of the shutters in my room, or at midnight, when the world is in deep silence.

The sound of flipping books brings me back to the time when my mom sat in the living room quietly, with a cup of hot black tea as always. At the time when she read, I always found a stream of light illuminating the table, covering her face partially. One page, two pages, and three pages; as she kept flipping, the repetitive sound made the quiet afternoon …

Ars Technica, Bayan Mashrequi

Masters Theses

It’s easy to forget that we are living in an age of wonders, where the ability to perform feats that would have seemed divine miracles to our ancestors, has become mundane and routine to us. Even for people who are practitioners of this Modern Magic, the artificers and the sorcerers, the wonderfulness of the endeavor becomes difficult to appreciate most times.

Ars Technica serves a two-fold purpose here: for the uninitiated and the novice, this book aims to inspire and enable students, engineers and tech aficionados by highlighting the connection between mythology, literature, history and folklore with the wonders of …

Kitsch Study And Chinese Kitsch Market, Jiaqi Ellie Liu

Masters Theses

From the old industrial age to the new information age, the accumulation of capital has led to the monopoly of the assets and technology of large enterprises, and the pressure of the middle class is increasing day by day.

At the same time, informatization has led to a substantial increase in the next round of energy and material needs, and therefore human needs for thinking, physical and emotional needs have also increased. Kitsch can meet the thinking and emotional needs of the public. Therefore, it has become the mainstream contemporary aesthetics.

Kitsch art & design are easier to be loved …

Distilling The Narragansett Bay, Parker Ives

Masters Theses

My thesis is an investigation of material vernacular and a celebration of process and material. I am manipulating locally sourced materials to pull out unexpected qualities in order to distill a unique identity associated with a place and the things that give that place its character.

The resulting work focuses on distilling the Narragansett Bay through the lens of three categories. Reminiscence, Impression, Composition. These works fall into the categories of being reminiscent of a place, impressed upon by a place and composed of a place.

This thesis is not a conclusion of this area of inquiry, rather it seeks …

Psychological Well-Being Through Music Listening, Majed Boughanem

Masters Theses

Design has gotten good at delighting and stimulating us in the short term. Could we design products that are good for us in the long run?

In this project, I looked at positive psychology for concepts to develop into features of products and use music listening as a vehicle for integrating them. I propose three music-listening features that help exercise and cultivate emotional regulation strategies:

1_The Reaction Tile

2_The Monofilter

3_The Vibelist

Each feature represents one or multiple strategies from the Process Model of Emotional Regulation.

Shoes For Advanced Urban Surfaces, Karan Buasakdi

Masters Theses

The journey to designing shoes that use irony and mischief of everyday life in Bangkok to criticize the social-political climate and challenge the norm. In the act of desacralization while trying not to get arrested with the problematic criminal code article 112, the Lèse-majesté law of Thailand.

The design is based on the designer's life growing up in Bangkok. The tax use priority in Thailand doesn’t reflect the life of its people. One of the most prominent features of Bangkok is its abandoned sidewalks. The abandonment of infrastructure is part of our lives as well as the feeling that we …

Rebuilt The Fading Vicinity, Yifan Du

Masters Theses

Something is missing on the scale between me and the whole world. That’s also the dilemma of the Millennials. The giant gap between the ego and the world builds an invisible wall. This invisible barrier makes us nonchalant toward the trivial things happening just right in front of us. Ironically, the nonchalance makes our society more emotional and drastic. We get outraged more easily compare to the past.

How should I invite people to appreciate and care more about our surroundings? How do I rebuild the fading vicinity? Those questions are the starting point of my thesis journey.

Beyond Conscious: The Knowing Of Self-Owned Anxiety, Wenyu Du

Masters Theses

To achieve recognition of when we might under anxiety attack, the first step is to introduce the practice of expressing ourselves with wearable devices- Nudo for users to say “no”, “I am not in a good condition” with no words, gently reveal your emotional status and give you the sense of support. Nudo works like the defense mechanism of humans and gathers our body signals that are triggered from anxiety as a recording piece that allows users to track what’s happening during every specific moment. It also works as a reminder for those who might not recognize their own anxiety. …

Wild Things: Outdoor Toys For Nature Play, John Mawhorter

Masters Theses

Kids are increasingly plagued by what Richard Louv calls Nature Deficit Disorder; the litany of physical and mental health problems that result from lack of free play in nature. Wild Things is a modular toy system designed to inspire children to engage in nature play. Its reconfigurability allows it to vary its form to match the variety of natural forms.

Made of recycled sail material and shaped like a balloon seed pod, the central spheroid acts as a hub for a plethora of smaller forms that can be attached to it or each other via simple velcro straps. The abstract …

A Family Game: Tell The Stories That Shape Us, Zhuoyan Xie

Masters Theses

There are a lot of books and theories on the market to help improve our communication skills and relationship with others. However, they hardly mention that the fundamental principle behind our relationship to others is how we understand and accept ourselves. The thesis aims to promote our understanding of our own identity and identities of our family members. It is worthy to mention that the thesis is conducted in a Chinese context. The thesis mainly learned from Non-violent communication and theories about identity, especially narrative identity. The deliverables are a set of narrative cards and prompts that can be played …

Inter - : Design For Fostering Action-Oriented Awareness Towards Sustainable Transition, Elena Danlei Huang

Masters Theses

In order to meet the need for sustainable transition, it is vital for the general public to be aware of the social and ecological interconnectedness within existential climate crisis, local sustainable development, and urban individual’s behavioral patterns. As a method to rebuild interconnectedness, this thesis explores design interventions for fostering action-oriented awareness towards sustainable transition. Jumping out from the current paradigm, it tries to connect the audience to alternative conceptual representations. An integrated theoretical model built around a local contextualized issue is proposed in the thesis, followed by a practice-based case project focusing on Rhode Island Squid Fishery as a …

Zoomorphic Extended Body, Nicholas Tamas

Masters Theses

My thesis work is built around emerging technologies within the fields of prosthetic and robotics. The end result is a speculative proposal with how to expand the potential modes of use with these emerging technologies to extend and build upon their potential uses.

Beacon Public Library: Expanding Radical Civic Care For An Uncertain Future, Katrina Machado

Masters Theses

Stressors like climate change will put strain on our communities, making them more vulnerable. I am asserting and expanding the role of the public library as a civic space for radical care and community resilience. This work explores the ways in which the public library, as an existing institution, could adapt to the needs of its changing environment and community. Interventions are visualized by a librarian’s jumpsuit and library apron, an adapted library book cart, public signage, and a re-imagined library card.

I imagine a public library that pushes the bounds of its physical building and actively and compassionately serves …

Designing For Space; Exploring Ways Of Simulating Nature And Everyday Activities In Zero-G Environment, Sayit Alisan

Masters Theses

As a great outcome of our advanced technology, we built a spacecraft called the International Space Station (ISS) that orbits the Earth within the thermosphere and where we situated a bunch of astronauts to do scientific research for a designated period of time. For the last 20 years, ISS has been running by different astronauts who had to live in a new environment which is completely different than where they used to live before. Since they live up there for at least 6 months, one way or another they start missing any earth-like experience such as being in nature, wind, …

After Plastic Waste : Plastic Bottle Knitting Machine - Design For Value Of Recycling Plastic, Du Cheng

Masters Theses

Plastic is the cheapest and most versatile material invented by humans. But with it comes endless pollution. In the face of plastic waste, I need to establish a direct and effective plastic reuse method.

In order to limit plastic waste to a controllable range, I try to reduce the cost of recycled plastics and increase the value of recycled plastics. After research and experimentation, I created a method of turning plastic bottles into plastic cloth through cutting and knitting. This method and material provide a new direction for the reuse of plastics. For the creation of new reuse methods, it …

The Portal : A Tool For Uncertain Times, Sophie Engel

Masters Theses

My thesis is about imagining a Positive Apocalypse. Not a utopic version of the end times, but one that sees hope in the end of our current systems and ways of thinking; a future where at the end of the world, instead of reaching for your gun, you reach out to your neighbors. Most renderings of the apocalypse we see in popular culture stem from patriarchal fears of loss of control, chaos. Most narratives depicting the end of the world devolve into inevitable violence and extreme isolationism.

In the industrial design world, narratives are used as a way to sell …

The Art Of Microbe Maintenance: Value And Applications In Design, Yujin Hwang

Masters Theses

My thesis centers around designing microbial systems and objects for a sustainable future. I propose ideas to bring microbes into the home in order to make people understand them as a part of the environment. Through deep consideration of how my microbe based material could change across national and social contexts, I create accessible, attractive and friendly-looking design objects with microbes that address people’s fear of microbial life. I strive to facilitate the intersection and interaction between people and technologies in ways that are ultimately harmonious for the well being of both.

My ultimate goal for my thesis is not …