MFA Thesis Project
Project Mentors
Ellen Lupton
Jason Gottlieb
Jennifer Cole Phillips.
Project Mentors
Ellen Lupton
Jason Gottlieb
Jennifer Cole Phillips.
My final thesis project at the Maryland Institute College Of Art (MICA) for the Graphic Design MFA investigates the positive role of an experience in today’s world and as a potential tool to consider while approaching a design problem.
By taking upon the role of a curator, planner and designer, I looked at the format of a festival/conference/event to provide a platform for the Asian and middle-east design community working in the USA. This provided these designers an opportunity to share their unique insights and connections between their culture and their work. Titled Toast—International Design Festival, The event took place on 15 February 2019 for the Graphic design community at MICA.
By taking upon the role of a curator, planner and designer, I looked at the format of a festival/conference/event to provide a platform for the Asian and middle-east design community working in the USA. This provided these designers an opportunity to share their unique insights and connections between their culture and their work. Titled Toast—International Design Festival, The event took place on 15 February 2019 for the Graphic design community at MICA.
The visual identity for the festival was based on a handmade typeface that I created. The letterforms reflected a path that was unique and reflected the idea of a journey. I went ahead to create a display typeface using this tool that ultimately became the core element across all my brand applications.
I scanned each character, cleaned and tweaked them digitally and then finally vectorized them so that they could be used on large scale applications seamlessly. I was also able to create contextual alternates for several characters. This was an efficient tool to break the monotony and still retain the genuineness that comes from hand-crafting letterforms.
Documenting an event is another project in itself. I hired photographers and videographers to document every little detail of the event. These photographs and images manifested in a small publication that I created. Titled, ‘Post–Toast’, this tabloid format publication showcased some of the highlights from the event.
This became a design piece that perfectly captured the different interactions of the event on paper, especially for someone who couldn’t attend the event.It became an effective way to share and discuss my project with anyone. I printed multiple copies and was able to send one to all the speakers as well.
