Date of Award

Spring 5-30-2009

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Fine Arts (MFA)

Department

Graphic Design

First Advisor

Thomas Ockerse

Second Advisor

Hammett Nurosi

Third Advisor

Tom Wedell

Abstract

"Do not hide the structure, celebrate it in the form" ; "Approach design from multiple points of view."

These adages, so important in my architectural training, reverberate with intricate practicality in my work as a graphic designer, both as a way of building my design and as a means of developing a design process which explores multiple ways of organizing content through visual systems. Forming Process is defined by three conditions: celebrating the visual systems which organize the design, archiving content from multiple ways of collecting, and creating work by which the process of design is implicit in the design solution. There is beauty and function in the marks that are made during the design process. I believe by celebrating the process in the form, more interesting and informed design solutions can be discovered. I begin by developing visual systems which organize the objects I design. I often layer many systems such as grids, printing structures, and typographic systems in order to provide a structure that will initiate an uncertain result. These systems are then infused with elements of an archive, gathered from multiple methods of collection. Photography, writing, and surveying — often through chance operation — allow the layered visual systems to produce a serendipitous form. Trusting the systems which structure my work allows for the process of developing the form to be revealed in the design solution. Designing in this way permits the poetic nature hidden within the predictable dimensions of the study to arise, and yields work which oscillates on a spectrum across information and form.

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