re/connect

When educators offer inclusive ways to study design, will student work have greater significance to our communities?

This thesis explores how recognizing our differences and sharing what has shaped us can dissolve the barriers that slow or thwart education. By helping students shed the fear of being different, educators can create common, fertile ground. The case studies presented indicate that the common ground is a safe space, and fostering critical thinking and collaboration can result in faster development of design expertise.

The stage for this thesis is set through the lens of my own childhood experience. I was raised in a divided Germany, where politics and social hierarchies defined personal status. This ignited in me a desire to work with diverse students of all age groups, and to find effective ways to ensure that every student has an equal opportunity to succeed.

About Annette:
Senior Creative Lead specializing in delivering rich, user-friendly digital experiences. Skilled in conceptual and strategic development. Passionate about education. Typography and design aficionado. Travel enthusiast.
Creative Director | Adjunct Professor | Bilingual (German)

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For single mothers, we are to prioritize our children’s lives above all. My days are filled with working and maneuvering my children’s activities. What comes first? pokes through the anxiety of my solo mothering.

Drawing letters is to acknowledge that my role as a mother leaks through all parts of me but it is not my core. I started relating my mothering with my individual sense. Instead of finding this work-life balance, I live my mothering and caring through this act of drawing letters that allows room for what I aspire as a designer, to communicate my voice, and to always take up space.

Jessica Robles designs lettering and more with the background of the green mountains of Vermont, and three growing children. She plans to be an educator, and currently enjoys working for her design studio, Sumak Kawsay.

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I come from the land of eggplant parmigiana, otherwise known as North Providence, Rhode Island. My background is not extraordinary, although it is the source material for a lot of good TV shows. Raised by an ensemble cast of charismatic Italian American Catholics, I have a penchant for storytelling, home cooking, and saucy attitudes. In a relatively homogeneous environment, moms argue over how much mozzarella you should not be using, guarding themselves against too much difference for the sake of being palatable to other Americans. Instead of strictly adhering to our ancestral recipes, I believe we can adapt them to better suit our modern tastes.

As a ritual site where family and friends come together to share a meal and talk about life beyond dessert and coffee, Table Talk is where I discover who I am, how I contradict myself, and what I need to become a designer with a heightened sense of agency. In this collection of standalone zines, dinner conversation and family recipes act as metaphors for how community sourcing and relational design methods can create new possibilities, rather than eating the same meal week after week. By actively engaging multiplicity through both individual and group making, I want to find the more expansive parts of ourselves that can nourish the world we live in by making it a bowl of pasta.

Kyla is a graphic designer and educator who lives and works in New York City. In addition to hosting coworking days and dinner parties, she’s often exploring the abundance of artisan bakeries throughout the boroughs.

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Impermanence, the fact that everything is always changing, is omnipresent and unstoppable. The sooner we embrace this and let go of resistance, the sooner we can find a sense of calm about the future and explore the opportunities it presents. The graphic design industry has not been immune to the exponential advancement of technology of the last few decades, and the road ahead looks just as uncertain as it did 30 years ago.

By approaching the latest trends and tools with a sense of curiosity and playfulness, we can explore these opportunities and experiment in a way that enables us to create innovative work and experiences we never thought possible. In addition, with every new groundbreaking technology comes new ethical questions and lessons to learn. What can we learn from our past that might inform us to make better decisions in the future? As designers, how can we approach these new tools and technologies more ethically? In our explorations, we must be mindful of how our design decisions may impact society and ask ourselves how we can be more responsible going forward.

Zach is an Associate Experience Designer at Electronic Arts working on the Madden franchise remotely from Syracuse, NY.

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I am obsessed with collecting historical gay ephemera.

What started as an eye-ogling attraction for hunky beef-cake models, my collecting intensified and deepened because of my ever-growing curiosity for gay history. I wanted to know more than what I was taught through the lens of white heterosexual America. I wanted to uncover as much as possible about the stories and heroes who were kept from me in my youth.

The result of my obsession is a collection of visual storytelling. One that uncovers how postwar gay men found their identity and fostered community. How gay artists and photographers used books, magazines, pamphlets, and posters as means to not only showcase their artistic talents, but also to introduce the gay lifestyle to the public at large. How gay men developed secret codes for sex and survival. How heroes like Frank Kameny, Marsha P. Johnson, Silvia Rivera, Harvey Milk, and the members of ACT UP refused to be silent in the face of prejudice and oppression.

This thesis captures my journey of discovery into the histories behind each of these people and moments, and the ways graphic design and print media acted as tools for homosexual men to discover and nurture their identities in an analog world. Decades before the internet and hookup apps put our history and our bodies at each other’s fingertips, it was print culture—easy to disseminate and difficult to track—that helped gay men find their sexual compatriots.

Working on this thesis for the last two years meant moving beyond my comfort zone as a graphic designer. Some days I was a researcher—other days, a collector, curator, or archivist. My aspiration for this collection is to become an accessible archive that preserves this history, rather than being tossed into the fire. After all, the equality sought by the generations of artists and activists profiled in these pages is an equality we’re still fighting for today.

Rick is an Assistant Professor of Graphic Design at George Mason University School of Art, Fairfax, VA, and owner and Creative Director of his design practice, Fuszion.

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Brain space is a clinical term used to describe the room a person has for learning or thriving when their mind is busy keeping them safe. I have set out on a journey to piece together the ways in which designers can harness their creativity by utilizing this space. I’ve researched the parts of our brains that are used when we’re flexing our creative muscles, and compared those to the parts we use when we’re struggling. As it turns out, we can help take control of our creative brain by going on a walk, setting boundaries, engaging in positive friendships, and more. These activities give our lives balance, and prepare us for moments of mind wandering, which is our ideal space for creativity. My methods of design practice center around kinesthetic and therapeutic activity. This includes illustration, collage, watercolor and lino print, creating meaningful imagery and symbols to visually mirror every step of the process. My hope is that each person—the designer, the creative soul, or someone dreaming of being one of these—can find solace here.

Cory Dinsmore is an Assistant Professor of Graphic Design at Colby-Sawyer College in New London, New Hampshire. She lives in Windsor, Vermont with her husband and their dog. Cory draws upon her experiences in clinical mental health and her studies of human development for her approaches in both design and teaching.

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I wanted to research Puerto Rican graphic design/ers because of a personal desire to find resonance with part of my heritage and values in the field of graphic design. In this thesis, I take the time to share how I see design, justice and advocacy, and identity development through the concept of transnationalism interwoven in Nuyorican graphic design. I was able to visit Hunter College’s Center for Puerto Rican Studies, Taller Boricua, and El Museo del Barrio to investigate the history of the Nuyorican Movement as well as see works made by Nuyorican artists and designers. This process has helped me learn more about my family’s history, grow in my own ethnic identity development, and contribute to the expanding canon of graphic design.

I’m a surface designer who cares about community, peace, and thoughtfulness. I help make surfaces engaging through color, shape, and rhythm. My work aims to reflect the places and people I create for and imbue a feeling of calm, thoughtful activity. I value working together to realize a vision and want collaboration to be an essential part of my creation process.

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