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.
These works are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.
Theses/Dissertations from 2022
Ports of entry, Forough Abadian
Capture, control, circulate : can we queer regulatory power in Graphic Design?, Adie Fein
Alien Encyclopedia, Zengqi Guo
Re-order the order of thing, Yingxi Sabrina Ji
Openness, Qiwen Ju
!, Nick Larson
Connect: translating complexity through visual simplification, Ilhee Park
Other realms, Louis Rakovich
Slow ruptures; slow formations, Asta Thrastardottir
Theses/Dissertations from 2021
Open articulations, Matthew Bejtlich
Paperwork, Romik Bose Mitra
Community, harana & karaoke: towards a theatrical design, Ryan Diaz
Personal positioning system, Laura Diez de Baldeon
Parentheses asterisk ellipses, Everett Epstein
Refiguring relations, Daphne Hsu
CTRL SHIFT, Kit Son Lee
Jettisoning the frame: strategies for designing at the threshold, Will Mianecki
Future as medium, Georgie Nolan
Elsewhere: impressions of sense & nonsense, Madeline Woods
The relativity of value, Lai Xu
Theses/Dissertations from 2020
My millennial Asian fetishized American fantasy, Seyong Ahn
Temporal collisions, Lizzie Baur
Strata : lessons in latency, Mukul Chakravarthi
Re: Ornament, Aleks Dawson
A very large array, Hilary duPont
Oh wait, is this a loop?, Carl-Gustaf Ewerbring
Counter formation, Fabian Fohrer
Binge [Fantasy reality], Elena Foraker
How to do things with things, Emily Guez
Skew-morphic dream, Yoonsu Kim
Ancient hyper present, Sophie Loloi
EthnoGraphemes, Vaishnavi Mahendran
U+16E99, Bobby Joe Smith III
Something to see here, Weixi Zeng
Theses/Dissertations from 2019
Record : from signal to atmosphere, and the spaces between silence and noise, Amy Auman
Plenty : wanting, choosing,, overwhelming unloading, Christopher Cote
Among : a series of enactments, Joel F. Kern
Let's meet over there / Eury Kim., Eury Kim
Lateral movements : in multifaceted time and space, Jieun Kim
Making common, Elaine Lopez
Standards, rules, setting, Robert McConnell
Abjad orientations, Mohammed Nassem
Softweave, Annaka Olsen
Groundwork, Marcus Peabody
Body of work, Oliva de Salve Villedieu
Cosmosis, Angela Torchio
Re-creation : a package design for daily life, Wei-Hao Wang
Interface philosophy, June Yoon
Theses/Dissertations from 2018
This is public work, Nick Adam
Haunt : casual surrealism, Cara Buzzell
Placefulness, Ellen Christensen
Anachropomorphism!, Carson Evans
Lingua Franca, Tatiana Gomez Gaggero
Field guide : collected studies of a symbiont, Jennifer Livermore
Tiny Diasporas, Angela Lorenzo
Reading rooms, Jinhwa Oh
Space, Junk, Brandon Olsen
Hyperlink : connecting space, time, language, and technology, Marie Otsuka
Constellations, Maria Rull Bescós
Squishy Play, Lauren Traugott-Campbell
Monument for feeling : Notes from the Archivist, Melissa Weiss
Theses/Dissertations from 2017
Otra vez : hierarchy as designer, Jordyn Alvidrez
Double takes : secular magic & empathic vision, Lake Buckley
Playgrounds, Cem Eskinazi
Content-aware : investigating tools, character & user behavior, Llewellyn Hensley
When it won't fit : a book about containers, procedures, and transformations, Bo-Won Keum
Space as a practiced place, Elizabeth Leeper
Frame-work, Drew Litowitz
Scripting allographs, June Shin
Our measured world : a poetic translation, Minryung Son
Identity production, Boyang Xia
Design syncopations, Mary Yang
Theses/Dissertations from 2016
Hyphen nation: a reconciliation, Lynn Amhaz
Rapid response, James Chae
Continuum of significance, Diane Lee
Live edges: all possible adjacencies, Rebecca Leffell Koren
Practice makes practice, Gabriel Melcher
Dimensional flatland: Beamer, drone, flash drive, Scarlett Xin Meng
Traversing languagescapes, Desmond Pang
Theses/Dissertations from 2015
Multiple influences: from witnessing language to performing it, Viviane Jalil
Speculative politics -fictionalized spectacle, Prin Limphongpand
Theses/Dissertations from 2014
Speculative archives : an index, Sameer Farooq
Learning to live in thick interface, Jonathan Hanahan
Not not real : exercises in styling, Sophie Mascatello
Theses/Dissertations from 2009
Forming process : design through layered visual systems and multiple collection methods : a thesis, Jen Magathan
Films from 1999
Oral History Interview with Malcom Grear, June 30, 1999, Malcom Grear, David Strout, RISD Archives, and Frank Muhly