Date of Award
Spring 5-31-2025
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Fine Arts (MFA)
Department
Graphic Design
First Advisor
Minkyoung Kim
Second Advisor
Kelin Zhang
Third Advisor
Travess Smalley
Abstract
This thesis offers a subjective and process-based exploration of digital tools, challenging the dominant function-driven mindset that often defines digital design today. Rather than prioritizing speed, efficiency, or usability metrics, this work is a shift in focus toward experience, spatial awareness, and the subtle dynamics of interaction.
Rooted in acts of attention—looking inwards, looking outwards—this approach begins by setting aside assumptions about what tools are for, in order to ask how they shape our behaviors and ways of thinking. In doing so, it proposes a design methodology grounded in presence over productivity, process over execution, and agency over automation.
The body of work developed through this methodology spans a variety of graphic experiments, spatial arrangements, and interface reimaginings. While each project stands on its own, together they form a procedural narrative—offering methods, gestures, and scores for rethinking how we interact with digital systems. These are not definitive answers, but open-ended invitations to see design differently.
By resisting the standardized logic of contemporary UI/UX frameworks, this thesis seeks to uncover what lies just outside their bounds. It encourages a return to design as a reflective and relational practice—one that opens space for curiosity, presence, movements, and the subtle dynamics between ourselves and the systems we touch.
Recommended Citation
Ro, Soyoung, "Graphic Gestures on the Digital Surface; In Defense of the Observational" (2025). Masters Theses. 1451.
https://digitalcommons.risd.edu/masterstheses/1451
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.