2019/20 MGD Bulletin

2019/20

MGD Master of Graphic Design Department of Graphic Design and Industrial Design College of Design NC State University

2019|20

MGD Master of Graphic Design Department of Graphic Design and Industrial Design College of Design NC State University Raleigh | North CarolinaÂ

A Year-and-a-half of Days in the Lives The 2019/20 edition of the MGD Bulletin attempts to capture the richness of the MGD community.

I have the privilege of editing and designing the MGD annual bulletin at the end of every academic year. Past editions have featured the exploratory and scholarly work of current students and faculty primarily. When I started on the 2019 edition in May of last year, I had decided to instead turn an eye on the students and academic life. I ended up not being able to complete or publish that edition, so this May, 2020, I picked up where I had left off to create this, the 2019/20, edition.

What a difference a year can make. The pandemic that has beset the globe is just beginning to point to the trials that we as people and as an institution will face in the coming year and years to come. Students and faculty are scattered about the state, the U.S., and beyond as we continue to “shelter.” And while we’re all concerned, I know that we will remain connected.

As I reviewed the stories and photographs collected the last academic year and began to add those from this year, I realized that we are in fact a close-knit bunch. We often say to outsiders that a sense of community is a strength of the program. But seeing the arc of events and activies captured from September 2018 through to May 2020, and witnessing the connections amongst students and faculty as represented in this ephemera, I can say that we have fairly convincing evidence.

We share the organizational structure of the college and the program. We foster long-lasting relationships amongst students, as well as alumni and faculty. Members have professional life goals in common. We support each other’s agency and ability to influence decisions made for the program. And together, over time and in various ways, we build upon historical consciousness, this bulletin being but one manifestation, despite delays.1 1

Introduction

Denise Gonzales Crisp Professor and Director of the Graduate Program

Opposite: Jessye Holmgren-Sidell constructs a conceptual model during a studentled workshop.

1. Design Anthropologist Elizabeth Tunstall identifies five attributes shared by a community: organizational structure; relationships; life goals; agency, and historical consciousness.

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Everyday with Everyone

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Everyday with Everyone

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MGD ANNUAL RETREAT

Cooking. Eating.

Playing. And Thinking Beyond the Classroom.

Students and faculty gather under the North Carolina pines sun and stars to connect and to make.

Opposite: Feta stuffed figs wrapped in bacon and broiled have become a perennial favorite hors d’oeuvre.

Below: Picture of a picture of nature. Nature mediated, or how you know that we’re designers.

On a warm Friday in late September, students and faculty pack cars with sleeping bags, hats, bug spray, flashlights, bags of groceries, and boxes of art supplies, and head off for a weekend of serious fun. The destination is a rural camp center where everybody settles into cabins. We unpack groceries.

We set out to explore the grounds and then, in late afternoon, convene to prepare dinner and design the dining area. Two days of workshops, campfires, delicious meals, hikes, thesis discussions, and all manner of spontaneous activity ensue. Each year the event and the menus are unique because the students comprising each year’s group are different. Yet traditions and friendships persist year after year.

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MGD Annual Retreat

“ My favorite part of the retreat has always been cooking meals together. Orchestrating those dinners is a design challenge in itself, but everything always turns out great.� ashley

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“ My first year I was introverted but by my second year I learned to open up and use the retreat as an opportunity to connect with the community.� randa

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“ The camp experience is a rite of passage for outdoor adventurers.

Now it is for designers.� eryn

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“ Whether kayaking on a lake, belting pop songs in your cabin, or eating dinner with everyone around one big table, the retreat is an experience I wouldn’t give up for anything.” jack

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MGD Annual Retreat

“ Sitting with the second year students and seeing the process of their thesis while they were explaining helped a lot for the first year students moving forward.� nigel

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“ There’s less of a push to be creative and more for personality to be revealed.” casey

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MGD Annual Retreat

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WORK SHOPS From the fall semester, 2018, through the fall semester, 2019

Enacting the Future through Design Futurist Stuart Candy led an intensive workshop that demonstrated the ways in which design practices can shape the future.

Helen Armstrong Associate Professor

Opposite: Stuart Candy, PhD, of the Carnegie Mellon University Situation Lab and co-author of Design and Futures, free for download on his blog The Sceptical Futuryst at futuryst.blogspot.com

Stuart Candy has been instrumental in developing “design fiction” and “speculative design” as tools for devising alterative futures. His collaborative projects utilize transmedia storytelling, participatory events, games, installations, and guerrilla interventions. Museums, festivals, conferences, and city streets worldwide have featured his work exploring experiential futures, as well as the Discovery Channel, The Economist, and Wired magazine.

Candy launched the graduate workshop with a warmup session using his card game: The Thing from the Future. The game asked students to collaboratively and competitively sketch out artifacts from specific futures that engage with thematic story arcs ranging from “grow” to “collapse” to “discipline” to “transform.”

One group focused on conveying a plausible, hopeful future in which trash was nonexistent. They created a performance called “The Museum of Yesterday”—a fictitious exhibition in the year 2080 that showcased the experience of handling, viewing, and disposing of trash as if it was an artifact of the past. The exhibit had labels, an interactive trash station, and a performative “trash man.” Placing trash on a pedestal behind tape that said, “Do not touch,” revealed to the visitor a future in which trash no longer existed; the climate change battle thus became a winnable scenario. As MGD student Katie Frohbose explained, “The trash exhibition was like telling someone the ending of a story before reading it, giving them the keys to the future before having to walk it.” The workshop overall leveraged speculation, narrative, and performance as tools for designing higher quality conversations about possible futures.

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“ The trash exhibition was like telling people the ending of a story before reading it, giving them the keys to the future...� katie

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Moving People, Moving Stuff on NC State Campus Studying the mobility of people and things by identifying regularly observed outcomes (ROOs) and mapping actors and associations.

Deborah Littlejohn, PhD Associate Professor

Opposite: Deborah Forster, PhD, is an assistant project scientist at the Qualcomm Institute of Calit2 and affiliated faculty with The Design Lab, both at UC San Diego. qi.ucsd.edu

Theoretical frameworks provide a focused perspective, or lens, through which to examine a design-related problem space with an understanding of the conceptual foundations that undergird theory and the role of visual description in the research process. In a two day workshop, these projects explored how to understand, map, and work with HumanCyberSystems using perspectives from two different theories — distributed cognition (DCog) and actor-network theory (ANT). Students visually mapped their research on NCSU campus “mobility” systems and how these systems might change over time. The workshop took place in the GD572 Theoretical Frameworks in Design seminar with visiting scholar Dr. Deborah Forster.

DCog Mapping Process

ANT System Mapping

1. Choose a regularly observable, clear outcome (e.g., something regularly carried out [hence ‘process’]) 2. Thickly describe (ala Geertz) what is happening, step by step, in the system 3. What ‘cognitive problem’ is the system/ environment solving?

4. What are the elements involved (i.e. which elements have an effect on the outcome?)

Map a network of actors and their associations in a system.

1. All the ‘actors/actants’ in the system.

2. Relationships and interactions. Where they ‘come in contact’ with each other.

3. Arcs of ‘participation’ and ‘association.’

4. What is your ‘participation’ in this system? What is your view? Place yourself into the system of the associations you map.

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Student-led Workshops Exploring the Futures of Design Students grappled with the trends in design that are redefining what and how we design.

Deborah Littlejohn, PhD Associate Professor

We study the cognitive and cultural basis for the trends through theoretical readings and design-related research that inform our depictions of intelligent systems, services, experiences, and environments.

Through a series of seven two-day workshops, this work investigated new approaches to designing interfaces, information, and interaction processes, and new ways of documenting and communicating, such as: visualizing social landscapes, conversations, and networks; depicting culture and identity with knowledge markers and interaction history; delineating public and private space; and bringing the online world’s open sociability into the physical world (and vice versa).

We explored topics through the lens of trends outlined in the AIGA’s Designer of 2025 briefing papers to place the work in a problem space that directly concerns graphic design’s future.

Workshops were motivated by the leaders’ curiosity and intent — what they wished to investigate as it pertained to the studio themes and trends. The goal was not to reach definitive conclusions, aka “design solutions.” Rather, we investigated design as cultural and cognitive outcomes by way of practices that favored inquisitive, iterative, expressive, and temporary outcomes — each of which we might call “A Thing.”

Students presented the outcomes of the seven workshops in an exhibition that they curated and designed in Brooks Gallery, College of Design, from November 2018 to January 2019.

View the exhibition in 360 at poly.google.com/view/b5nNUKbhflb

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TREND 1

Bridging Digital and Physical Experiences TREND 2

Aggregation Curation TREND 3

Accountability for Anticipating Design Outcomes TREND 4

Resilient Organizations TREND 5

Core Values Matter TREND 6

Complex Problems TREND 7

Making Sense in the Data Economy

aiga.org/aiga-design-futures

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Trend 1 Workshop: Make the Digital Chat More Physical Ashley Anderson Matt Lemmond Matt Norton

People move across platforms and between devices, environments, and activities more and more. This workshop challenged participants to imagine how those transitions might be more fluid. Participants identified common gaps that occur when communicating across platforms ­(for instance, moving from a Google Hangout chat to a person to person interaction) and designed interventions to address them.

Trend 2 Workshop: The “List” Ellis Anderson Grace Herndon Dmitri Knapp

Lists are categorical representations of information (data) and critical components to aggregation curation. This workshop asked designers to think critically about the list form. How might a list behave in three dimensions? Four?

How does the list function within a larger system? How might it be subdivided? Who is this list for and how does its form impact interaction and user intention?

Trend 3 Workshop: Tags and Traces Katie Frohbose Krithika Sathyamurthy

Design research illuminates how one problem area connects to a tapestry of embedded issues. It also helps us recognize subjectivity and multiple perspectives, which leads to a more holistic understanding of complex systems. This workshop focused on the value of research throughout the design process and the potential of combining iterative analysis and research synthesis. We asked that participants think about how designers might adopt a broader definition of data to encompass the more subjective, personal, intimate, and therefore imperfect aspects of information systems.

Trend 4 Workshop: Data Portraits Randa Hadi Jessye Holmgren-Sidell Katherine McCracken

Participants set out to depict their identities using data relevant to their lives. The workshop had four phases.

First, participants contemplated which type of visual data best represented them. They then collected the data. The curation phase asked participants to assemble the visual material onto blank silhouettes that we had prepared. Finally, participants interpreted each other’s data portraits.

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Trend 5 Workshop: MGD Code of Ethics Shadrick Addy Victoria Gerson Harrison Lyman

We identified the values that businesses and companies must use in order to develop trust with their consumers, and the independent values that designers must maintain in order to practice as ethical professionals. Participants reflected on their own design practices to identify guiding principles that they may or may not have considered before, and then developed their own code of ethics. We then compiled thoughts and agreed upon a manifesto — a document that everyone would be proud to sign.

Trend 6 Workshop: A Very Complex Problem Alysa Buchanan Matthew Maharaj Michele de Souza

Our world is deeply interconnected. Solving one problem often leads to discovering an array of new, complex, and previously unidentified, yet related issues. How can the experience of balancing the needs and desires of different constituents be replicated in a studio environment? This workshop set out to address these questions through role-playing. We set up the scenario that aliens were invading Earth. Seven teams assumed specific roles: The Military, Politicians, the Public and Activists, Sympathizers, the Emergency Rescue Team, the Medical Industry, and Press and Media. Each team expanded on the invasion story, then negotiated and argued with the other teams to propose how to save Earth.

Trend 7 Workshop: Living in a Data Economy Matt Babb Hannah Faub Ashamsa Mathew

Participants explored the unpredictable nature of the data economy and the designer’s role in it. They generated data and were asked to trade that data randomly to introduce the concept of the unforeseeable nature of the data economy.

Participants then developed a character and an environment from the dataset and designed a representive image. Finally, participants applied a real-life news story to the image to further recontextualize the content.

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Design Futurespective and the Adhoc Formation of a Fugacious Collective 2 locations. 23 students.

4 days. 2 workshop instigators.

16 movable tables. 8 gallons of orange and black paint.

Limitless creative energy.

Right: Details from Brooks Hall Gallery Futurespective living exhibition/lab in the College of Design and the ICA MECA in Portland, Maine. During the initial Brooks workshop and ICA residency, students in each location maintained various electronic exchanges that influenced activity and projects in both places, as well as the final exhibition content.

Opposite: Detroit designer, filmographer, and publisher Benjamin Gaydos, from the University of Michigan, Flint. flintmagazine.org

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In November 2019, students transformed Brooks Hall Gallery into a living exhibition/lab, a project that was part of the fall 2019 graduate studio. Visiting designer and professor Benjamin Gaydos led a three day workshop with 18 students to initiate the exhibition/lab. Five students traveled to Portland, Maine, with the studio professor Denise Gonzales Crisp to conduct a design residency within the DesignInquiry: Futurespective exhibition occurring simultaneously at ICA MECA.1 Together they comprised “The Fugacious Collective.”

The overarching inquiry in both locations was grounded in thinking and acting “Futurespectively,” that is, rethinking the past in the present to point to the future. The studio investigations questioned conventional design processes, and students considered how designing within future situations recommends that these processes evolve. The character and dimension of semester discussions, writings, prototypes, curiosities, reflections, and insights culminated in an exhibition that officially opened, as an actual exhibition, at the end of the semester. Human scaled interactive projects, digital music created from course data, prompts and take aways, exploratory videos, and dozens upon dozens of “how to’s” filled the space from December 5, 2019, to January 13, 2020. The projects invited improvisation, proposed tools for public engagement, speculated on the visual languages of design, and represented ongoing calls and responses amongst students. The point of the project, though, did not manifest in all of the Things that ended up filling the gallery.

The crucial outcome was the experience, the enactment of design that emerged collectively and collaboratively.

1. www.meca.edu/article/designinquiry-futurespective

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PORTLAND ME Above: Ben Gaydos introduced the notion of imponderabilia, which became one of many call + response subjects across the miles posted to Instragram during the workshop and residency.

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Left: All 23 students submitted a “250 word abstract for a 100 word paper,� as per the DesignInquiry Convivium call. Ten of the abstracts were selected. Five students presented in person at the event held in the ICA galleries, and five presented virtually. Technical difficulties connecting to virtual presenters led to sometimes physical interventions (far left).

RALEIGH NC

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For the final exhibition, a group of students initiated the HOW TO project, meant to engage the entire class in writing and designing instructions of every sort.

Students placed topics within the scatterplotlike spreadsheet based on relative practicality and degree of complication.

Many of the HOW TOs that students authored represented their own concepts being played out in projects displayed throughout the exhibition, and provided an entry point for visitors.

HOW TOs were variously cheeky, reflective, absurd, and useful: How to get people to do a How To. How to wear a sock. How to get out of here without scrapes or bruises. And portentiously, How to feel trapped in digital space.

Students gathered on the night before the exhibition opening to install over 150 HOW TO ephemeral works in a variety of media.

T H E O R E T I C A L + I N A I M S +

architecture of decay (RH)

Human in UX research (KF)

questions

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How to make a mixtape (IB)

How to understand the User Exprience of a "thing" (KF)

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How to buy a cup (DK)

How to save humanity from extinction (MM)

How to take up more space (AA)

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know about...yet (DK)

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How to look like an alien from mars?

(HF)

How to be secretly awesome (MPS)

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typography (RH)

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how to be present?

(RH)

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how to archive a living, breathing, active space (RH)

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How to deprive senses (DK)

How to make monkey bread? (HF)

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How to Research (KF)

How to do an ontography Map of Your Home

How to live in a space of ordered chaos (IB)

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How to Remain Sane During the Divergent Stages of Designing

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How to think Spatially with type

How to create your own visual communication system. (ML)

How to get out of here without any scrapes or bruises (MK)

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How to be Brave (MPS)

How to be vulnerable (MPS)

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How to get in your body to make space for your brain (KF)

how to rethink space and place? (RH)

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How to convience people that it is 2048 (DK)

How to paint a self portrait (NJ)

How to paint the inside of a tube attached to a wal (HL)

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How to cite a 16week long project (MN)

How to put cranberry sauce on your turkey

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how to create an iterative exhibition (RH)

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how to capture the ephemeral and make it tangible (RH)

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How to tie a bow tie (NJ)

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during Thanksgivi (mk)

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How to build a house in the woods (AA)

How to do breathing exercises (IB)

How to Play with your cat

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How to watch a fi with subtitles

How to clean white shoes (NJ)

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how to create ad-hoc augmented reality filters (RH)

how to park illegally (mk) (obviously)

How to let go (AA

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How to see out of your peripheral vision

How to walk two dogs at the same time?

(HF)

how to make your process transpare (RH)

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How to wear a necklace (GH)

how to lose track of time (IB)

How to put together a outfit (NJ)

How to engage in space (AI)

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How to straighten natural hair

how to rethink objects and their functions? (RH)

How to learn vocabulary

How to aggregate a 16-week class (MN)

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How to make the invisible visible (DK)

how to create space (AF)

How to create an invisiblity cloak (DK)

How to do an ANT map (KF)

How to distract your child under 3 while doing homework. (AI)

How to write a check (NJ)

How to involve the user (DK)

How to scream quietly (DK)

how to document your process (RH)

How to make memes (GH)

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How to read a book (DK)

How to turn your body into a helicopter (DK)

Visualize an unpredictable process (MK)

how to disrupt a space (RH)

How to Haiku (AF)

How to reuse resources for a project (DK)

How to understand futurespective? (HF)

how to feel space?

(RH)

How to write a research question the wrong way (KF)

How to write a research question the right way (KF

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How to transcend the linear discontinuous way on conceiving time (AA)

How to Protest (VG)

Embrace and leverage the unpredictable (MK)

How to wear a hat (GH)

how to see the process in the product? (AA)

How to get your family to help do house chores (AI)

how to become a tree (RH)

How to do Laundry (GJ)

How to fold a sheet of paper (GJ)

How to draw a map a space unknown (

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How to go to Paris (GH)

How to teach an old dog new tricks (IB)

How to shift your persepctive (KF)

How to feel trapped in a digital space (AA)

How to hear your heart/or brain/or blood? (KF)

How to mail a postcard (IB)

How to wear objects that are not clothes (GH)

how to archive? (RH)

how to make a two person scarf (GH)

How to wear pants (GH)

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Scatterplot by Dmitri Knapp and Randa Hadi

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S I M P L E

{ I N

I N S T R U C T I

ing

ll

(GJ)

living with an AutoImmune disease (AI)

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How transform google sheets in to a design project

How to get wire inside a tube (HL)

How to make the visible invisible (DK)

How to create perspective with 6 squares on a wall

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How to find materials for a workshop at a scrap warehouse

How to drive when you're anxious (AA)

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How to wear nail polish (GH)

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p of (AA)

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How to wear a shirt (GH)

How to make empanadas (VG)

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How to make curls (MPS)

How to learn about cognition (AA)

How to create a "how to" gradient in google sheets (DK)

How to tell if someone is lying or telling the truth (DK)

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How to plan your week (AA)

How to make a filter that depicts the way you see the future?

(HF)

How to Troll (DK)

How to make a bow and arrow (MM)

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How to Play with your Cat in the shower

How to send books to women in prison (VG)

How to create a tweet on mobile (AP)

How to entertain yourself and your chauffer during a long road trip

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How to make egg drop ramen soup (AP)

how to not how to (RH)

How to tape straight lines (MN)

How to transform a hall into a studio space (AA)

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How to tell a story with polaroid pictures (GF)

How to fry an egg (AP)

How to argue to value of a painting (MN)

How to annoy denise (MM and GJ)

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How to public Speak

How to make a tangible text thread (AA)

how to make a bubble wrap video (RH)

how to communicate using airdrop? (RH)

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How to eat a banana (AA)

How to Call and Respond (KF)

How to observe traffic (AA)

How to custom color thumbtacks (AA)

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How to microwave waffles (GJ)

How to draw an owl (GJ)

how to how to (RH)

How to roll dice down a hill (MM)

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How to wear a glove (GH)

How to wear a sock (GH)

How too look up at the ceiling and not fall over (MM)

How to wear a sweater (GH)

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O N }

How to make moon tea

P R A C T I C A L + I N A I M S +

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how to

embrace + leverage the unpredictable

don’t panic unpredictable is synonymous with experimental play curate your chaos anticipate disruption, brace for impact all design is unpredictable. client or critic or professor or collaborator. there is no prediction. no plan. when you approach the unpreidctable as familiar, it can be harnessed for its engagement, pain points, play. unpredictable is opportunity.

ENGAGE WITH THE COLLABORATION WALL NOTE: PAPERS ARE MOVEABLE FEEL FREE TO MOVE PAPERS AROUND AT ANY POINT

1. FIND SOMETHING ON THE WALL THAT PROMPTS YOU 2. GRAB SOMETHING TO RESPOND WITH 3. RESPOND ON ONE OR MORE PIECES OF PAPERS. *DONT

FEEL DISCOURAGED TO REACT ON PAPERS THAT ALREADY HAVE REACTIONS, EVERYTHING IS FAIR GAME

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This Page and Opposite: The image backing these details of a few HOW TO artifacts is Ab Feldman’s “How to Sonify a Fugacious Collective.” She, with Sakshi Gupta, wrote code that translated the course “Hub,” (a series of spreadsheets that guided and documented studio activities and projects), into soundscapes for the exhibition.

++how to

handle flying during Thanksgiving

Perhaps one of our most miraculous accomplishments as a species, we subsequently turned airplane travel into one of the worst human experiences. Iconic work.

To improve your travel experience, this frequent flyer has compiled the tried and tested ways to make flying, even during the busiest travel time of the year, a breeze.

Step 1: I like to book very early flights. This is key in combination with:

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3.11.2020 On this day the campus fell quiet, then student and faculty computer screens began to come alive.

*NEW* CATEGORIES

YOUR GUESS...

IS AS GOOD AS MINE

SO FAR...

SO GOOD

TIME FLIES...

WHEN YOU’RE HAVING FUN

IT TAKES TWO...

TO TANGO

EXCERPT

I’m thinking... (ex: about jobs)

I’m feeling... (ex: stir crazy)

I’m doing... (ex: a lot of napping)

We’re... (ex: dance partying)

IMAGES

Background: #0000ff

Text/Graphics: #ffffff

>> make sure that the background is blue and the text/ graphics are in white!

On Creating a Digital Studio: Just Say “Yes, And” Due to the novel coronavirus outbreak, we students lost our studio and with it a culture essential to forming community.

Randa Hadi Grace Herndon MGD, Class of 2020

Previous spread: Owing to sheltering, students and faculty met to debrief upon return to classes, albiet online.

Above and Opposite: The temporary “Quarantine” style guide for the graduate blog YesAnd, and its application. design.ncsu.edu/yesand

YesAnd, the student-run digital blog, exists as a place for MGD students to share research, personal creative endeavors, or just thoughts and feelings. The blog provides others with a window into the program, but we mainly write and post to keep one another connected with our happenings. On March 11, 2020, in the middle of spring break, NC State closed its campus to students and extended spring break for a second week. After only a short period we wanted to reconnect with classmates, knowing that we could only do so digitally. With no physical place to gather and so much out of our control, we turned toYesAnd. We saw an opportunity to make the blog a digital safe space. We frantically started to write ideas and devise a plan.

YesAnd posts are clusters comprised of an image in black or white and a written excerpt. When a reader hovers over a post, the image reverses color and the category and author are revealed. To reflect the dramatic shift we were experiencing, we decided to replace the black and white image rule with one of a bright blue image and an opposite of yellow on the hover. The introduction of color was a clear break from the blog convention.

We also proposed additional categories, inspired by our instructor Deb Littlejohn. She divides her Frameworks in Design seminar, which we all had taken, into three focus areas: theories of thinking, of being, and of doing. “Thinking” prompted the blog category “your guess is as good as mine;” “being” translated to “so far so good;” and “doing” became “time flies when you’re having fun.” We added a fourth category, “it takes two to tango,” to capture collective experiences.

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A Change in Plans

We emailed the entire program that we wanted to propose a change to YesAnd with the subject line “Do you miss us? Grace & Randa.” According to our records, the email arrived at 3:00 p.m. and at 3:13 p.m., Denise, the program director, replied in full support. By 3:30 several students and faculty were on one of our first Zoom calls of the pandemic era, completely impromptu.

We shared our ideas for temporary adjustments to YesAnd protocols. We chatted casually, perhaps a bit awkwardly, all of us being new to this environment. We goofed around with Zoom’s virtual backgrounds and green screens, learning the platform together. We were united, but in a new way. In the week following, our classmates began to post, which indicated to us that others were missing our MGD community as well.

YesAnd was helping all of us to feel a bit more connected.

It became a place that helped us cope. The blog showed promise for serving as a digital studio, a connection bandaid, a creative outlet, and a distraction during such strange times. Today we remain physically distant but socially entwined.

Above: Breakfast with Denise.

Opposite: Thesis meet-ups. Views from home curated by Jack. Nigel’s closet tour. Workouts with Eryn.

Matthew Peterson demonstrating visual rhetoric.

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A Change in Plans

The 2020 MGD Final Project (and other endings) Spring 2020 reminded us more than ever that design and designers must remain flexible and responsive to social need.

Matthew Peterson, PhD Assistant Professor Denise Gonzales Crisp Professor

Below: Diagram of research practices as Philip J. Cash conceptualized in “Developing theory-driven design research.” Design Studies, 56, 84–119, (2018).

The Final Project or thesis, situates design within, and relates it to, the social sciences. This emphasis connects students to a knowledge base outside of design and ensures that their work can be of benefit to other fields. Design researcher Philip J. Cash describes broader research practice as a continuous spiral, oscillating between theory building and theory testing processes. The evidence-based PhD program within our college — where some MGD faculty serve and some MGD alumni attend — enacts Cash’s theory testing. The master’s thesis project, then, utilizes design’s strength in lateral thinking to discover possibilities in relation to existing theory. The degree to which the investigation is driven by theory distinguishes it from undergraduate final projects.

The thesis topic in the MGD is defined in a fall seminar of the final year, with design exploration occurring in the spring studio. Facets of the investigation are manifest in the structure of the document that reports on the work, meeting the criteria of value, relevance, novelty, focus, transferability, and practicability.

A literature search and subsequent synthesis results in a conceptual framework that represents how the designer views the problem space.

Research questions and an investigation model define how exploratory studies relate back to the knowledge base.

Discussions following the studies derive principles from the exploration, which intend to point to future work.

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LITERATURE SEARCH is: Valuable

Problem Statement

Justification

Contextualizes the investigation and establishes it as “worth doing�

Establishes that the stated problem can be addressed through design is: Relevant is: Novel

Conceptual Framework Synthesizes theory from more than one body of literature is: Focused

Research Questions

Investigation Model

Relate users and technology to theoretically-grounded strategies

Structures variance in studies according to gaps in knowledge is: Transferable

DESIGN STUDIES

Discussion Identifies general principles that other researchers or designers might use is: Practicable

The Student Presentations of project research, design studies, and principles typically occur in the college auditorium before faculty, peers, and a few visiting reviewers at the end of the year. In 2020, as it became clear that we would have no such gathering, faculty and students devised a plan for a concluding event that exploited the affordances of online delivery. Rather than replicate a day of in-person presentations with visiting reviewers as per usual, we decided to hold a Thesis Project Symposium. Students determined affinities amongst their focus areas to form panels. Faculty members stepped up to moderate the panel sessions. Students invited over 130 MGD alumni and guests to participate.

The result was two days of discussion amongst an average of 60+ students, faculty, and other vital participants at each of the four panels. The session content described in the following pages is evidence that MGD student research areas extend well beyond self interest to facilitating positive change for others.

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A Change in Plans

Above: Thesis project investigation components.

MIND SHIFTS Cognitive behavioral therapy helps people with anxiety challenge unhelpful thoughts and behavior. However, treatments for anxiety can be costly and time-consuming. Efforts to expand therapy resources into the digital realm have made help more accessible, but do not take full advantage of the technology. This investigation combines imagery rescripting with multimodal digital storytelling to develop visual strategies for eliciting, reframing, and transforming mental imagery.

Visual Strategies for Challenging Negative Automatic Thoughts Ashley Anderson

Climate Change Perception Addressed in Four Dimensions Victoria Gerson

Women are frequently labeled as sentimental, while men are expected to never show signs of weakness or fear. Studies show a strong link between men’s aggressive behavior later in life and their difficulty expressing vulnerable emotions.

This project aims to prevent Restrictive Emotionality (RE) in young boys through a mixed reality game that brings father and son together to associate vulnerability with courage and adventure rather than weakness.

MGD Bulletin 2019/20

People perceive climate change as a distant phenomenon that is not relevant to them. The perception that something is far away from an individual is referred to as psychological distance spatially, temporally, socially, and experientially. This study investigates how interactions within virtual three dimensional environments can decrease psychological distance around issues of climate change.

A Mixed Reality Game to Guide Against Restrictive Emotionality Michele Pereira de Souza

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COMPUTERS HELP US : EDUCATION

session 2

Many academically proficient students with autism pursue higher education in universities. Unfortunately, enrollment and graduation rates of this student population are substantially lower than the norm. The often sudden deprivation of support systems to which students are accustomed leaves them at a disadvantage. This research investigates how integrating Machine Learning into a smart device might create accessible interventions that can provide timely support.

Problem-based Learning in VR for Students with ADHD Dmitri Knapp

An Adaptive Mentor for Students with Autism Ashamsa Mathew

Problem-based learning incorporates student-centered discovery of new knowledge that prepares students for real world problems. For students with learning disabilities, such as ADHD-I, a lack of executive function control can result in poor learning outcomes.

Experiential learning has been viewed as a means to overcome some of these challenges, as has virtual reality. This research explores how web-based VR can assist such students during problem-based learning.

Complementary Note-taking Matthew Norton

Digital note-taking applications are increasingly common as students continue to use personal computing devices in classrooms. These applications enhance note-taking with technological benefits such as ready retrieval, however, they are not designed to complement the cognitive goals of the student. This investigation explores note-taking interfaces that focus on student intentions while utilizing existing technological features.

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A Change in Plans

DIGITAL AND PHYSICAL

The Library as Digital Social Space Grace Herndon

Transnational families are characterized by their geographical dispersion. Although families are scattered owing to social, economic, and/or political influence, they often continue to keep close relationships across borders. This study proposes a spatial and dynamic digital archive that provides a means for families to share, annotate, explore, and connect through family narratives that weave together seemingly disparate but shared stories.

Citizen Sensemaking of Smart Environments Katie Frohbose

MGD Bulletin 2019/20

Local public libraries are social spaces.

Digital library interfaces might reflect the social components of information seeking beyond simple tools designed to search databases. This study proposes a digital library that offers the social benefits of a physical public library.

The investigation suggests motion as an indicator of presence, delimiting technological affordances to increase engagement, and the social value of designing interfaces to support autonomy.

Visual Strategies for Challenging Negative Automatic Thoughts Ashley Anderson

Transnational Family Histories in Dynamic Digital Archives

Randa Hadi

As pervasive and ubiquitous computing occupies corners of public and private space in smart cities, citizens need to be informed and aware of the affordances and agency of data and sensing artifacts. This investigation explores how the design of a mixed reality experience can render the “Internet of Things� infrastructure transparent by facilitating embodied and contextual interactions with sensors and data in situ.

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COMPUTERS HELP US : WELL BEING Loneliness is a growing problem in the world. More people every year struggle to find a sense of comfort with those around them. Although some existing intelligent systems attempt to address loneliness, they commonly take the form of simple chatbots. This study investigates how an Embodied Conversational Agent (ECA) system might foster a sense of companionship in users.

A Study in Companionship Aided by Machine Learning Matt Maharaj

Humor Facilitated

by Machine Learning to Combat Stress Harrison Lyman

session 4

People who work primarily on computers in office environments are prone to experience regular elevated stress. Humor is known to decrease stress levels. Machine learning technology can potentially detect stress in users and recommend appropriate humorous interventions.

This study explores the use of humor to eleviate stress through intelligent, low-strategy games, characters, and language.

Project Management Tools to Support Agile Methods Hannah Faub

Workplaces are adopting the “Agile Method,� commonly applied in web and mobile software development, to suit other processes such as design and marketing. This investigation explores how time is captured in a moment and is interpreted between individual workloads and cross functioning teams.

Rather than construct a new Project Management Tool, this proposal intervenes in existing management tools to allow for greater adaptability. design.ncsu.edu/thenfinally

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A Change in Plans

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The Signing Ceremony typically concludes the thesis process.

Graduating students and faculty committees convene a week after final project presentations to sign thesis documents using a pen “engraved” with the student’s name. This tradition would not be realized in 2020. The documents were electronically signed and sent unceremoniously by email to the Graduate School. So, just as we had united to host a virtual symposium rather than have in person presentations, we again launched Zoom, one last time, to applaud completion of the thesis another way. We read “letters to everyone” that the previous graduating class had written at their final MGD retreat for returning students to read the next year. The ceremony became Denise wrapping individual pens with the sealed “letter to my future self” that everyone had written to themselves during the 2018 retreat. A quick trip to the post office, and the projects were done.

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A Change in Plans

Opposite: The boxed “engraved” pens (typeset in Comic Sans to remind graduates that there is always room for play) wrapped with the letters that students had not had the opportunity to read at the fall retreat.

Below: 2019 MGD alumni Shadrick Addy’s “letter to everyone.” On the folded cover he had written “The love of design brought you here!!!”

MGD Publications Editorial Advisory Board

Tim Allen

Dennis Puhalla

MID 2002

PhD 2005

Andrew Blauvelt

Sadie Red Wing

Chair, Graphic Design and MGD Director, NC State, 1991–98

MGD 2016

Vice President, Design Airbnb San Francisco, CA

Professor, University of Cincinnati Cincinnati, Ohio

Student Success Coach, American Indian College Fund Denver, Colorado

Director, Cranbrook Art Museum Bloomfield Hills, Michigan

Alberto Rigau

Kyle Blue

MGD 2009

Principal, Estudio Interlinea San Juan, Puerto Rico

BGD 2000

Co-Founder / Creative Director Everything Type Co. (ETC.) Brooklyn, New York

Stacie Rohrbach

Meredith Davis Professor Emerita, 1989–2015 NC State University

MGD 2003

Associate Professor, Carnegie Mellon University Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Amber Howard

Martha Scotford Professor Emerita, 1981–2013 NC State University

PhD 2011

Owner / Chief Brand Officer 508 International Charlton, Massachusetts

Danny Stillion

Matthew Muñoz

MGD 1992

MGD 2008

Chief Executive Officer, New Kind Raleigh, North Carolina Angela Norwood

Jason Toth MGD 2006

Director of Strategy, Method Savvy Durham, North Carolina

MGD 2002

Associate Professor, York University Toronto, Canada

MGD Bulletin 2019/20

Partner, IDEO Palo Alto, California

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Links to Program People and Resources Department Head Tsai Lu Liu > tsailu_liu@ncsu.edu

+1 919 515 8340 MGD Program Director Denise Gonzales Crisp > dmcrisp@ncsu.edu

+1 919 515 8361 College Graduate Student Services Coordinator Jessica Jackson > jmjack22@ncsu.edu

+1 919 515 8317 MGD Program > design.ncsu.edu/academics/graphic-design/#graduate

MGD Student Publications Yes And > design.ncsu.edu/yesand And So > design.ncsu.edu/andso Then Finally > design.ncsu.edu/thenfinally

Graphic Design Faculty > design.ncsu.edu/academics/graphic-design/faculty

The Graduate School Admissions > grad.ncsu.edu/admissions

The Graduate School Financial Aid > grad.ncsu.edu/admissions/financial-support

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MGD Information

Graphic Design Faculty Helen Armstrong Assoc. Professor Kermit Bailey Assoc. Professor Victoria Chi Professor of Practice Denise Gonzales Crisp Professor Dr. Deborah Littlejohn Assoc. Professor Dr. Matthew Peterson Asst. Professor Scott Townsend Professor

WIth gratitude to the graduate students of 2019 and 2020

2019/20 MGD Bulletin Editor Denise Gonzales Crisp, in consultation with the Graphic Design Faculty Design and Production Denise Gonzales Crisp Eryn Pierce Photos MGD Students, with Special Thanks to Shadrick Addy, Randa Hadi, Grace Herndon, Matthew Maharaj, Jack Ratterree, and Krithika Sathyamurthy.

Typefaces Founders Grotesk Text and Mono Feijoa Display KLIM Type Foundry, AU Produced with Support From The Department of Graphic Design and Industrial Design, College of Design Printed in USA

by Four Colour Print Group, Louisville, Kentucky. 150 copies @ $5.02 each.

Printed in USA Digital Version Available @issuu.com

©2020 NC State, College of Design MGD Bulletin 2019/20

Shadrick Addy 2019 Ashley Anderson 2020 Ellis Anderson 2019 Matthew Babb 2019 Isabel Bo-Linn 2021 Alysa Buchanan 2019 Lauren Burnham 2022 Dmitri Knapp 2020 Hannah Faub 2020 Abigail Feldman 2021 Katie Frohbose 2020 Victoria Gerson 2020 Sakshi Gupta 2021 Randa Hadi 2020 Grace Herndon 2020 Ash Isley 2021 Gloria Jing 2021 Jessye Holmgren-Sidell 2019 Nigel Jones 2021 Maddy Kelly 2021 Marcie Laird 2021 Matthew Lemmond 2019 Harrison Lyman 2020 Matthew Maharaj 2020 Ashamsa Mathew 2020 Maryam Nadali 2022 Matthew Norton 2020 Phil Oweida 2022 Anna Pataky 2021 Eryn Pierce 2021 Jack Ratterree 2021 Krithika Sathyamurthy 2019 Michele Pereira de Souza 2020 Casey Stanek 2022 62

In the 2019/20 MGD Bulletin 01

A Year-and-a-half of Days in the Lives

02

Everyday with Everyone

MGD ANNUAL RETREAT 08

Cooking. Eating. Playing. And Thinking Beyond the Classroom

10

2019 in Laurinburg, NC

14

2018 in Chapel Hill, NC

WORKSHOPS 18

Enacting the Future through Design | Stuart Candy

24

Moving People, Moving Stuff on NC State Campus | Deb Forster

30

Student-led Workshops Exploring the Futures of Design

36

Design Futurespective and the Adhoc Formation of a Fugacious Collective | Benjamin Gaydos

3.11.2020 48

On Creating a Digital Studio: Just Say “Yes, And”

52

The 2020 MGD Final Project (and other endings)

54

Thesis Project Symposium Super Briefs

INFORMATION 60

MGD Publications Editorial Advisory Board

61

Links to People and Program Resources

Brooks Hall, Box 7701 50 Pullen Road Raleigh, North Carolina 27695