MAGD – Page 4 – The New England School of Art & Design at Suffolk University

Nick DiStefano Featured on TheDieline

Nick DiStefano, a Masters student at NESAD, had his packaging design work featured on thedieline, a popular packaging design blog.

Nick talks about some of the challenges he faced with packaging design that differs from print or web, “One of the challenges was dealing with the different planes of each package, keeping them consistent…There’s more of a physical experience involved too, and one of the challenges was carrying over and adapting the design as one would open each package; what information or imagery can be revealed as it opens and how it relates to what you see when you first encounter it closed.”

Nick’s packaging line was inspired by his art history background and Italian heritage. The brand name, Novecento, means twentieth century in Italian.

“I love turn of the century art, and from there I started looking at Italian travel posters from the period, especially the more graphic ones that would reduce the essence of the place they were promoting into something simple, but still able to show what they represent.”

Using that same idea of reducing something down to its essence, Nick designed icons for each package in the Novecento line that represented the product inside. Nick describes, “Even if you can’t see the text, I wanted someone passing them by to be able to see those illustrations and recognize what they were, or at least get an idea of what they were about, like using the cow to symbolize milk, or conveying spinning for the writable discs.”

The icons also give each package personality and act as an attention grabber.

You can view more of Nick’s work here.

Join Us at the Graphic Design Master’s Thesis Exhibition

Directions to the Gallery

Exhibiting Designers:
Shi-Min Chin
shiminchin@gmail.com
Emily Roose
thesketchypixel.com
emily.roose@gmail.com
Victor L. Cabrera
victorlcabrera.com
vicgraphicdesign@gmail.com
Jeanie Havens
jeaniehavens.com
jeanie.havens@gmail.com
Kathryn Simonson
simonsondesigns.com
kmsimonson@gmail.com
April Kalix-Cattell
aprilkalixcattell.com
april.kalix.cattell@gmail.com

Stephen Plummer Wins Pacemaker Award

The seemingly endless hours of hard work that go into each piece of design are always worth the final product. Stephen Plummer, a graduate student at The New England School of Art and Design at Suffolk University, learned this lesson while working as Editor in Chief at The Bridge, Bridgewater State’s literary journal.

He says, “I developed an appreciation for the finality of publication. Once it’s printed, it’s done, imperfections and all. There are so many nuances to take into consideration (especially when dealing with so much type) that striving to get everything absolutely perfect becomes an enormous task, but ultimately a worthwhile one.”

And he’s certainly right. Stephen and his fellow team members have been awarded the Pacemaker by the Associated Collegiate Press, a national award considered to be the highest honor given to student publications. Design, content, and layout are the three main components taken into consideration.

As Editor in Chief, Stephen played a crucial role in the design and layout of the journal. With helpful input from the entire group, he designed the cover, navigation icons, and certain portfolio pages. Stephen says his experience with The Bridge has also taught him “an invaluable amount about publication, how to best select and place content, and how to make a book that is a cohesive piece.”

Though journal or magazine design may not be in his future, Stephen is sure that the skills he developed from his experience at The Bridge has prepared him for wherever he ends up.

Students Visit The Wall Drawing Retrospective of Sol LeWitt at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art

What does graphic design have to do with fine art?

A group of NESADSU students grappled with this question as they visited The Wall Drawing Retrospective of Sol LeWitt at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (Mass MoCA) in North Adams, MA.

The exhibit featured the work of American minimalist artist, Sol LeWitt. However, the work shown was actually executed by a group of artists who were following Sol LeWitt’s instructions for completion. Associate Professor of Graphic Design at NESAD, Kayla Schwartz, explains, “He believed in following a process wherever it would lead, embracing the unknown and celebrating the unexpected. Placing the execution of his work into the hands of others solidified this belief.”

The end result of Sol Lewitt’s process is a monumental exploration in color, line, grid, pattern, and figure/ground relationships. Sound familiar? Each of these concepts are essential to graphic design. Kayla Schwartz says, “LeWitt was not a graphic designer but few would deny the graphic nature of his work.”

Michelle Pergal, a graduate student at NESAD, said, “Ask me a year ago, and I would say I don’t particularly care for a lot of contemporary or abstract art. My perception has totally changed, however,approaching it from a design perspective. Having this new take on things, I am completely appreciative and fascinated. Sol Lewitt completely captures so many important design principles. His work is not just about shapes and colors. I got the sense that each piece tested and pushed one or several design principles to the brink.”

Designers Engage Student Assistance in Creating Food Faces

We’ve all been warned not to play with our food, but no one warns us against designing with our food.

This past summer, NESADSU students were asked to collaborate with faculty members Rita Daly, Masters in Graphic Design Program Director and Assistant Professor, Kate McLean, in the creation of food faces used to engage third and fourth graders in an initiative to improve the nutritional quality and to encourage the reduction of packaging in home prepared lunch boxes.

The results of the grant, The Green Project Lunch Box Study, awarded to The Friedman School of Nutrition Science at Tufts University, is a pilot program introduced to a select group of Massachusetts school this fall.

The project components included curriculum guides, student workbooks, a packaging guide for parents, and posters promoting the program. Lindsay Peterson, Project Manager of The GREEN Project Lunch Box Study, said “The GREEN materials are printed and we have conducted 9 teacher trainings thus far. The teachers are so enthusiastic about the materials. The project has been a dream to present this to the teachers – I can’t imagine having to sell a campaign that we are not so proud of”.

The designers would like to extend their thanks to the students for their creative and playful contribution to this characterful and important educational program.

Environmental Design Class Visits Tsoi Kobus Architects to Learn About Wayfinding

Graphic design is not limited to print and web; graphic design skills are needed in areas such as environmental design as well. NESAD’s Environmental Design course is a multidisciplinary class that combines students from the graphic design program with interior design students. Recently, they visited Tsoi Kobus Architects, a Cambridge based architecture and interior design firm, to learn more about wayfinding.

Wayfinding is a system designed to aid individuals’ navigation through a physical space. Two employees and former NESAD students from Tsoi Kobus Architects, BFA graduate Laura Nathanson and MA graduate Sarah Brett, presented a wayfinding project they have been working on for Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary. They explained the process of wayfinding: research, evaluation, planning, and final production.

Part of their research included visiting the Perkins School for the Blind where a recently installed wayfinding system that does not rely on sight was installed. Students were able to put on goggles that imitated various sight impairment situations.

Grace Murthy, a graduate student in the Environmental Design class says, “What I found interesting at Tsoi/Kobus was their creative way that they were able to incorporate wayfinding considering the city’s restriction. In their wayfinding solutions, they were constantly thinking about the decision points that the viewer makes. Their solutions needed to function as directions but also needed to incorporate the esthetics of the building’s architecture.”

Emily Roose’s Masters Thesis, Slow News, on Quipsologies

Do you consider cross-stitching to be a hobby of the past? Well, think again! Emily Roose, a Masters student who graduated in 2011, has transcended the art of cross-stitching into a medium for news distribution.

For her Master’s thesis project, Emily aimed to create something away from the computer. Her solution was to cross-stitch, a skill she had learned only a few months prior. By using news as her subject matter, Emily transformed the nature of modern fast-paced media. Each cross-stitched news story is a timeless piece of work that continues to hold an existence beyond its quick news coverage.

Each piece started as a sketch based on imagery from TV broadcasts and news websites. Twenty-five hours later, Emily turned the sketches into vibrant cross-stitched stories. She says, “I was attracted to the pixelated quality of the stitches, and even though it seems like a very anal-retentive task, it’s actually not when you are not using a pattern and designing as you go. I think of it as a very slow mode of drawing.”

Her work was featured on the popular design blog, Quipsologies. Check it out here. You can also see more of Emily’s work here.

Victor Cabrera: Winner of American Graphic Design Award (Student Category)

How do you convince someone to stop eating meat? Explaining the gruesome process young chickens endure before they appear on grocery shelves might do the trick. (Did you know that by week seven, chickens are crammed in cages for slaughter?) This was Victor Cabrera’s award winning strategy for an ad series advocating vegetarianism. The ad series was a part of the Graduate Design Studio 2 class, which he took in the spring of 2011 at The New England School of Art and Design at Suffolk University.

Students were instructed to sell the idea of vegetarianism to an audience comprised mostly of non-vegetarians. They could convince, scare, heckle, plead, threaten, use guilt, reverse psychology, or wear them down, but the audience must become vegetarians.

After researching how various groups advocate for vegetarianism, Victor chose to use guilt. The campaign was so successful, it even worked on himself, “I have to be honest, after finishing the project I spent at least a week or so without eating chicken.”

This was the first time Victor chose to enter his work into a design competition. He believes entering competitons are a great way to get exposure, possibly to potential employers,“it opens up your mind to…approach a potential client or even apply to a company that you thought may not be interested in your work.”