Graphic Design Masters Theses

 

RISD’s graduate program in Graphic Design prepares students for professional practice by emphasizing the roles of social context, media and aesthetics in the production of visible language systems. As a reflection of the discipline itself, the program encourages a nimble and intelligent response to constant change and burgeoning technology, while building a strong foundation of formal, aesthetic and analytical knowledge.

Individual thesis investigation is central to the final year of MFA study and culminates in the comprehensive presentation of work representing an original voice for visual and verbal expression of design thinking. The thesis should be equal parts exploration, explanation, provocation and contribution. Guest critics participate throughout the year and in the year-end thesis review, which offers a forum for critical dialogue focused on each student’s contribution to the field of graphic design. All MFA candidates also submit a written thesis and as a group participate in the RISD Graduate Thesis Exhibition, a large-scale public show held annually.

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Theses from 2024

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ASILI, Husna Abubakar

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Graphic Desire, Michelle Belgrod

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Never Real Historians, Emily Bluedorn

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On the Impulse to Notate, Lydia Chodosh

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This Is For You: A handbook for design students, Gabriel Drozdov

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Soft Procedures, Alec Figuracion

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Endless Form, Kaela Kennedy

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Graphic Warmline, Soo Min Lee

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Here—There, Glikeriya Shotanova

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Variations on Noise, Clinton Van Arnam

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Life of Things, Things of Life, Shiyue Wang

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surface tension, Berett Wilber

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Perform—Produce, Rebecca Wilkinson

Theses from 2023

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Making Then Meaning, Ben Denzer

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Form Follows Feeling Follows Form, Harshal Duddalwar

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Making time: Gentle invitations for radical slowness, Lian Fumerton-Liu

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Superbland, Dougal Henken

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Crossover Logics, Serena Ho

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Connective Movements, Ian Keliher

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Invisible Systems, Mina Kim

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Press Play, Karan Kumar

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Searching for New Landscapes, Halim Lee

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Moving at the Speed of Trust, Sun Ho Lee

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Access in Ambiguity, Moritz Lónyay

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Infinitely Incredible Configurations, Jenni Oughton

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Virtual Fantasy, Joey Petrillo

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Surfacing: a (loose) manual on unlayering / stuff-making and hypervisibility, Zoë Pulley

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OtherWorldly Gestures, Sadia Quddus

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Input / Output, Zach Scheinfeld

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Particular Proceedings, Ingrid Schmaedecke

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Writ In Water, Jack Tufts

Theses from 2022

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Ports of entry, Forough Abadian

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Capture, control, circulate : can we queer regulatory power in Graphic Design?, Adie Fein

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Alien Encyclopedia, Zengqi Guo

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Re-order the order of thing, Yingxi Sabrina Ji

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Openness, Qiwen Ju

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!, Nick Larson

Oral History Interview with Preston McClanahan, November 8, 2022, Preston McClanahan, Holly Gaboriault, and RISD Archives

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Connect: translating complexity through visual simplification, Ilhee Park

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Other realms, Louis Rakovich

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Slow ruptures; slow formations, Asta Thrastardottir

Theses from 2021

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Open articulations, Matthew Bejtlich

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Paperwork, Romik Bose Mitra

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Community, harana & karaoke: towards a theatrical design, Ryan Diaz

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Personal positioning system, Laura Diez de Baldeon

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Parentheses asterisk ellipses, Everett Epstein

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Refiguring relations, Daphne Hsu

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CTRL SHIFT, Kit Son Lee

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Jettisoning the frame: strategies for designing at the threshold, Will Mianecki

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Future as medium, Georgie Nolan

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Elsewhere: impressions of sense & nonsense, Madeline Woods

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The relativity of value, Lai Xu

Theses from 2020

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My millennial Asian fetishized American fantasy, Seyong Ahn

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Temporal collisions, Lizzie Baur

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Strata : lessons in latency, Mukul Chakravarthi

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Re: Ornament, Aleks Dawson

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A very large array, Hilary duPont

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Oh wait, is this a loop?, Carl-Gustaf Ewerbring

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Counter formation, Fabian Fohrer

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Binge [Fantasy reality], Elena Foraker

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How to do things with things, Emily Guez

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Skew-morphic dream, Yoonsu Kim

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Ancient hyper present, Sophie Loloi

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EthnoGraphemes, Vaishnavi Mahendran

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U+16E99, Bobby Joe Smith III

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Something to see here, Weixi Zeng

Theses from 2019

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Record : from signal to atmosphere, and the spaces between silence and noise, Amy Auman

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Plenty : wanting, choosing,, overwhelming unloading, Christopher Cote

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Among : a series of enactments, Joel F. Kern

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Let's meet over there / Eury Kim., Eury Kim

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Lateral movements : in multifaceted time and space, Jieun Kim

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Making common, Elaine Lopez

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Standards, rules, setting, Robert McConnell

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Abjad orientations, Mohammed Nassem

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Softweave, Annaka Olsen

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Groundwork, Marcus Peabody

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Body of work, Oliva de Salve Villedieu

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Cosmosis, Angela Torchio

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Re-creation : a package design for daily life, Wei-Hao Wang

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Interface philosophy, June Yoon

Theses from 2018

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This is public work, Nick Adam

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Haunt : casual surrealism, Cara Buzzell

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Placefulness, Ellen Christensen

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Anachropomorphism!, Carson Evans

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Lingua Franca, Tatiana Gomez Gaggero

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Field guide : collected studies of a symbiont, Jennifer Livermore

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Tiny Diasporas, Angela Lorenzo

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Reading rooms, Jinhwa Oh

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Space, Junk, Brandon Olsen

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Hyperlink : connecting space, time, language, and technology, Marie Otsuka

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Constellations, Maria Rull Bescós

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Squishy Play, Lauren Traugott-Campbell

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Monument for feeling : Notes from the Archivist, Melissa Weiss

Theses from 2017

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Otra vez : hierarchy as designer, Jordyn Alvidrez

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Double takes : secular magic & empathic vision, Lake Buckley

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Playgrounds, Cem Eskinazi

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Content-aware : investigating tools, character & user behavior, Llewellyn Hensley

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Space as a practiced place, Elizabeth Leeper

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Frame-work, Drew Litowitz

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Scripting allographs, June Shin