As a designer, I seek to frame a message through a delicate balance of legibility and expression. Through set type and illustrative elements, I aim to create balance through that contrast. Each project naturally demands a different approach but I want my attention to detail and craft to always resonate through the final product.

[Adobe Systems] I hope to utilize sustainable design in my future work by creating products that are effective and have a long lifetime. I also want to design a creative solution for product packaging. So much of what we buy comes in excessively huge containers that ultimately end up in landfills and pollutes our land and oceans. I want to design packaging that uses a minimal amount of material that is recyclable and woven with fibers of plant nutrients that can then be placed back into the Earth and used to naturally fertilize our plant life or that has another function after being opened. Also for publications, I want to move in a more virtual direction so we are cutting down fewer trees for paper. By making applications for computers, phones, and tablets, people will be able to access them more easily and the message will have the potential to reach a much wider audience. Graphic design is communication. Finding a way to communicate most effectively to the population in an environmentally friendly and socially responsible way is my goal for sustainable design.

 

As part of the creative process of being a designer, I am constantly seeking inspiration from experienced graphic designers. In class we covered a wide array of designers, each with a different design philosophy and worldly perspective. One designer that I find particularly interesting is Edgar Kauffman, an American architectural historian, curator, and critic who lived from 1910 to 1989. His most notable writing was the Twelve Precepts of Modern Design. In summary, he stated that modern design should be practical, express the spirit of our times, benefit from advances in the fine arts and pure sciences, not try to be something it is not, and it should serve as wide a public as possible. I like his concept of simplicity and efficiency. I aim to make designs that are straight forward and reach a large audience. It is my goal to also create designs that embrace the culture of my client. The materials I use will be chosen based on the design’s purpose and not try to make it have an elaborate or unnecessarily complex appearance.