Graphic Design

Permanent Link: https://hdl.handle.net/10177/40385

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Now showing 1 - 6 of 6

Nico Bakh 2025
(2025-11-20) Bakh, Nico
This thesis highlights the creation and application of Bakhchin: an ornamental display typeface developed through a process of typographic deconstruction and cultural reflection. Drawing from personal history as a second-generation American with Georgian, Armenian, and Russian influences, the project explores how language, memory, and identity are interwoven through typographic form. Originating from a core memory and experience of creating Cyrillic letters from a roman alphabet for memorial ribbons in a family floral business, the typeface evolves into an immersive installation exploring themes of identity. Research into experimental typographers and designers—such as Herb Lubalin, Massimo Vignelli, and Eikou Zhang, informs the project’s focus on craft, calligraphy and architectural principles of structure, scale, and spatial interactions. The calla lily, a flower culturally associated with masculinity, becomes the foundational reference for the typeface’s visual characteristics. Words embedded with cultural and personal significance, including terms tied to gender expression, homophobia, and silence are recontextualized to reclaim agency and challenge inherited cultural constructs. The installation features cyanotype prints, embroidery, newsprint, patterns, projection, gold-cut stencils, and an immersive, sanctuary-like environment to examine how typography can function simultaneously as artifact, narrative, and spatial experience. Influences from immersive installations, contemporary art, and floral arrangements shape the multisensory experience of the space. Through these materials, Bakhchin becomes both a typographic system and a tool in exploring themes of reconstruction, queerness, silence, and cultural inheritance. Ultimately, the project positions typography as a medium capable of articulating complex themes. Bakhchin reflects the fragility, fluidity, and resilience of identity as a second-generation American—by reclaiming language as both personal and collective connection, and inviting viewers to encounter identity through form, image, and light— by proudly wearing blue.
Katelyn Tran 2025
(2025) Tran, Katelyn
QUỲNH is a 3D-printed blind-box toy series that explores my experiences as a second-generation Vietnamese American person. The series includes 7 unique figures, each resembling various foods that I ate growing up. Each figure has its own unique story and visuals relating back to my experience culturally, as a designer/illustrator, and as a collector. They are also paired with a collectable card that has an illustration and short description of the figures’ connection to my experience. This project overall is a representation of my combined skills, wide exploration and thoughtful production process. I was inspired to create this project as a way to reconnect with my Vietnamese identity and navigate my struggles with belonging. Throughout the whole process, I would ask myself the same question: “Who am I?” I wanted to create a body of work that other second-generation Vietnamese Americans who are struggling with their cultural identity can see themselves in, as well as encourage them to reflect on their own experiences and share them with others. This is reflected in the ambiguous names for each figure, allowing each person to connect their own reason to the figures. This blind-box series not only allowed me to explore my experiences as a second-generation Vietnamese-American, it also allowed me to form new relationships, strengthen existing ones, and become a little bit more comfortable with just being myself.
Silver 2025
(2025-04-25) X, Silver
Full Thesis Statement / Abstract: “The Future of Design (and of the World) Is Holistic: Examining & Transcending Western Design Pedagogy, Practice & Paradigm” is a digital thesis booklet that positions design as a world-building force and posits that an equitable, efficient, and holistic design industry—and world—is vital, denouncing Western design as canon. Drawing from global pre-colonial design histories, contemporary critique, and speculative frameworks, it presents a compelling case for reorienting design education, industry standards, and everyday applications—advocating for design in service of the collective good.
Keanu Narciso 2025
(2025-04-18) Narciso, Keanu
LOOK! is a conceptual art and design project rooted in the simple, radical act of paying attention. It explores how overlooked fragment s of everyday life such as urban debris, textures worn by time, or incidental compositions can reveal symbolic meaning when approached through slow observation and intuitive response. Guided by the practice of the dérive and the philosophy of presence, I gathered over 500 abstract occurrences from my daily environment, allowing them to lead my creative process. Through archival curation, material exploration, and layered collage, these fragments evolved into a personal visual language—one that speaks to both internal states and external landscapes. The work blurs the boundaries between photography, design, and conceptual art. It embraces both precision and spontaneity, structure and disruption, reflection and reinterpretation. Each piece challenges habitual ways of seeing, inviting the viewer to slow down, to shift perspective, and to find resonance in what is usually overlooked. Ultimately, LOOK! is a meditation on perception, transformation, and creative authorship. It reflects my own journey of breaking routine, rediscovering intuition, and discovering meaning through an abstract lens. The project asks both artist and audience to move beyond surface layer of things, and to recognize the extraordinary potential hidden within the ordinary.
Hannah Fuerst 2025
(2025-04-14) Fuerst, Hannah
A Love Letter to Learning is a multi-touchpoint design exhibit that explores the beauty of life-long learning through upcycled relief printed garments.
Caroline MacLean 2025
(2025-04-16) MacLean, Caroline
Roots and Tides is a love letter to the people who ground me. It explores relationships, identity, and the ways we express care, specifically through music and design. I’ve always made playlists for people I love. It’s one of the ways I show up. This project is a larger, more intentional extension of that. Each album cover is inspired by a person in my life. Some are family, some friends, and some chosen family. I interviewed each of them, curated a short playlist based on our conversations and our connection, and created a visual language around their energy and aura. Each cover is unique to the individual but designed to exist as part of a collective whole, like a record collection. The name Roots and Tides reflects how these people shape me. Roots keep me steady; tides represent change, movement, and emotional currents. Both are necessary. This project was originally going to include a bound book and custom record case, but I scaled back due to time and resources. Still, I’m proud of what I completed: seven album covers and a gallery space that feels like an extension of my world. Many of the objects in the space are from my own home or my family’s. This process pushed me to play multiple roles: designer, art director, curator, and collaborator. It challenged my time management, decision-making, and ability to synthesize personal and visual storytelling. Ultimately, it’s about the people I love and the language I use to say so.

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