The undergraduate thesis
At the UIC School of Design, the senior-level Graphic Design Thesis course is taught across two semesters. The first semester is focused on exploration and research, and the investigation potential thesis topics. Students work on three projects as well as writing exercises and assignments, and they assemble an image collection. The second semester is focused on implementation and exhibition, and by the time students reach it, they are prepared to create their final thesis project, to determine the vehicle and design of their writing, to craft their final thesis statement, and to exhibit at the school Year End Show. Sharon co-teaches the course with Design Writing Instructor Meghan Ferrill.
Beneath the Buff | Poster, video, and website | Osiel Meza
Discipline is a narrow road. It’s tricky, but you can navigate it. Recklessness is a tightrope. Lose your balance and it’s a long way down. Reckless application of certain disciplines offers the world a taste of what true freedom looks like. Graffiti art is poised between the discipline and recklessness, a tightrope suspended high above a narrow road. Design principles apply. Proportionality, color theory, the use of serif and sans serif typography, balance, counterbalance, activation of space, and line are as important in graffiti art as they are in design. I engage in both practices. The one influences the other and vice versa. Beating the buff and remaining on the wall is the utmost triumph for a graffiti artist. Mostly, however, graffiti art disappears beneath the buff. Commuting in a city like Chicago is an urban experience in its purest form. Gazing out the window a cinematic narrative unfolds; free-form, gritty, stop-frame loco-motion. Beneath the Buff tells a similar tale but adjusts the lens, focusing on the undermined realities of the city’s South Side, the seen beneath the scene, routinely buffed away.
This. Is. What. I. Want. | Poster series | Jameisha Artis
I want to display blackness/black bodies in a celebratory way.
I want to discuss the problems and difficulties that black people face in their own community and in the media.
I want to discuss things like blackness using history and my own experience as a young black woman.
I want to talk about what makes me proud about black culture.
I want to critique black culture.
I want to have my work be provocative.
I don’t want to be nice or the angry black girl.
I want to show that I have passion and emotions for black culture.
I want to show this by the language I use.
I want to show how America systemically disenfranchises black people.
I want to show how the government or white people are worried about black people and see them as dangerous.
I want to talk about education.
I want to talk about anti-blackness in the black community.
Liberty and Justice for… | Installation, posters, and book | Mirella Muñoz
I am a proud Mexican-American woman. I am a graphic designer. The two identities are inextricable. My cultural heritage is the lens through which I perceive issues that are important to the Mexican-American community. My design practice enables me to address such issues, many of which are as demeaning as they are intransigent. Generations of Mexican-Americans have contributed to America’s burgeoning economies, working long hours for low wages (one of many indignities), and yet the Mexican-American community remains marginalized. As a designer, I make visible that which remains unseen and give voice to that which remains unheard. Working in various media, I seek to inform, inspire, and embolden my community. Doing so, I aim to intensify the interest and deepen the understanding of a culture that is rich, vibrant, indelible and vital to the ever-unfolding cultural history that makes America: Mexican-Americans.
Selfhood | Handmade posters, mirror cubes, embroidered shirts and bags | Jocelynne Hernandez
What makes you, you and me, me? Is there an identifying ‘red’ thread to one’s identity? Maybe. Then again, the identity we embody — our ethnicity, our cultural background, our language, to name a few — is different from the identities — plural — that we project; for instance, our choice of clothes, how we wear our hair, the neighborhood we live in, our hobbies, our professions, and so much more. These non-DNA related attributes, if I may call them that, change over time. Trends influence our public identities, so does our age, among other things, which means that our selfhood is in a constant state of flux. We no sooner pin down who we think we are that it begins to unravel. As a designer and a handcraft artist, I combine the tools, materials, and production methods of both practices to communicate meaning. In the end, questioning our identity is ongoing, something so simple yet so unpleasant because one could not be satisfied with the temporary result. More…
Shadow-world | Installation and publication | Kilenmarec Howard | 2019
Mental illness in the African American community is seldom discussed. The silence, or hush, around the subject is a menacing co-conspirator, a corrosive agent eating away at the health and wellbeing of an otherwise proud people. I know. I’ve been there. I am a designer and a writer. Prompted by a set of single words, I crafted a series of short narratives and an installation. Rather unwittingly, I came to see these narratives as telling vignettes into the shadow-world of mental illness.
Nostalgia | Installation and motion graphics | Jeff Torres
Distant memories are tucked away in the back of my mind. Some I can vaguely recall; some I’ve all but forgotten. It’s fascinating how easily a distant memory can be triggered, how a forgotten event can be instantly revitalized under just the right circumstances. A thought-provoking question that prompts a reverie, or a phrase that recalls a particular story to mind. Life being, as it is, on an unremitting forward trajectory, it’s important to take a little time and think about the road you’ve been on, so to speak. As a designer, I am interested in how design mediates experience and activates the mind of the receiver, and how language, especially, can enter the recesses of the mind and recast a memory into the here and now.
Raza | Mural installation and zine publications | Miguel Castro
Design plays a critical role in the dissemination of ideas and information. It is a particularly powerful tool in support of protest movements; getting the word out, calling attention to the cause, unifying the messaging. Investigations into the forms of expression created around the Riot Grrrl and Chicano movements reveal different manifestations of oppression and resilience. Both garnered support and rallied their allies through the design, publication and distribution of zines and posters. As a designer and writer, I am committed to speaking up on behalf of the voiceless and oppressed, and to engendering a sense of unity and solidarity. The power of design speaks to the power of communication. Whatever the medium — zine, poster, or mural — design can bring about real change.
Beauty | Poster series, letterforms, and book | Ewelina Rusek
Thousands of years ago, sculptures and artworks portrayed curvaceous, voluptuous, full-bodied women. The female form was the embodiment of fertility. The earliest known representations of women are the Venus figurines, with their pronounced hips and robust breasts. The Venus of Willendorf, unearthed in 1908, dates back to circa 25,000 BC. It is only in the modern era that the “perfect” female form has come to mean slender, even slight, an image that dominates commercial media and adversely affects the wellbeing of countless young women. The advent of social media has made matters exponentially worse. For me, design is about advocacy. With its reliance on the visual, design can scale cultural divides. Its language is by and large universal. As a designer, I am committed to revising how we envision beauty, starting with the physicality of the word itself, constructed in all caps: BEAUTY.
Fantastical | Poster series and publication | Tessa Alioto
The constants in all forms of expression are a source of light, a source of darkness, and some kind of story in between. As a designer, striking a balance between polarizing elements is among the things I strive for. As a storyteller, I oscillate between the substance and the void. I am a designer-storyteller interested in pushing the expressive transitional boundaries between presence and absence; form and language; and the spectrum of alignments between darkness and light. My work can best be described by a single word: Fantastical.
Identidad | Installation and ephemera | Noah Perez
The process of Identidad explored the notion of something that many share within a community — the fundamental essence of being Mexican and being American. This experience included taking the traditional culture that we share and bringing it into the now and the future. I used buttons to represent the staples in Mexican-American culture; flyers to discuss my reasoning, my purpose, my story and why I exemplify the richness of my culture; and the wall of flowers to alter the negative outlook on our borders that separate us from our families and our friends.