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"Continental Divide," poetry in motion with Professor Danielle Dubrasky. 1.08.

Research

I'm a graphic designer. I am thoroughly at home within the client-designer relationship. I value the process and know that some of the most rewarding work is born out of finding the most appropriate and visually interesting solution to a client's brief, given a certain market, a specific message, a tight problem to solve. This is the foundation of my design practice.

My personal, self-initiated projects and collaborations are more exploratory, often blurring the line between graphic design and art-making: interactive pieces that raise awareness of social, environmental, and political issues, as well as celebrate literary works — fiction, poetry, the written and spoken word.

Interactive pieces for bornmagazine.org and collaborations with Professor Todd Petersen and Professor Danielle Dubrasky have made me think twice about narratives as they are realized on the web. How is story structured?

For example, Lake Ontario explores the form of narrative with random image selection, a linear text sequence, a separate audio overlay, and ambient music from the Rachels. Each viewing is a unique combination of imagery, and as the movie cycles, the audio overlay changes relationship to the linear text. Is this graphic design, or is it art?

The most emotionally engaging and lasting works of graphic design have at their core meaningful messages, messages that speak to the heart of human matters, and I believe that the most compelling works are created in a spirit of artistic collaboration.

Always, I have the underlying feeling that there is much more to be done: more design, more art to create everyday. I typically have several personal and client-based projects in process at any given moment.

I see a valuable, respectable, very important place for the bulk of what is considered graphic design — but I believe that there is more to graphic design than selling pizza to the masses.

I wish to inspire students to ask, in the end: "How am I using my talents to add positively to the visual, as well as physical, environment in which we live?" I want to inspire them to see new media/interactivity as a new medium, craft and artform with potentials that go far beyond traditional print-based design.

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View selected works in collaboration.