By Dinorah Prevost
Some seniors have a thesis paper. Senior graphic design majors have a thesis show.
The newest crop of graphic design seniors will showcase their thesis projects at the cozy Studio@620 on May 1. This year’s theme: “winging it.”
But before the show comes the preparation and the sweat.
What’s your thesis?
The class of 19 students started the graphic design program together in the fall of 2017. The program is selective, admitting 20 students to a class every fall.
Julia Scheiber, who graduates in December, said the seniors learned what a thesis is last semester. Their prompt was “to be an activist about something and use design to bring light to the subject,” said Madi Clark, another senior.
Then they started developing theirs, but many of them ended up scrapping their ideas.
“We worked on it, and then after (winter) break, (I thought), ‘No, not feeling it,’” Scheiber said. “And so this semester, I took it upon myself to come up with a new idea.”
This semester, she started with a vague idea and did projects to explore and narrow down the topic.
“It’s kind of hard because I have this idea but I don’t know how to portray this,” Scheiber said. Eventually, I think I just had an ‘Aha’ moment.”
Clark, on the other hand, said she started developing her thesis last summer, and it didn’t change much from those early days.
Got my thesis. Now, make a thing.
Scheiber’s thesis is about “cringe, and how we should embrace cringe, rather than try to avoid it because it’s avoidable.” She’s been collecting “old, bad art and poetry that people wrote when they were younger” and framing it as art.
Scheiber said it will be like a “traditional gallery space.”
“But the funny part is that I’m like the curator of cringe,” she said.
For the show, she’s producing a book, pamphlets and vinyl stickers to plaster on the wall.
Clark calls her thesis “questions we should be asking ourselves.”
“I’m really motivated to uplift people by allowing them to recognize their worth,” she said. “I’m pushing people to understand the intricacies of being human … All in all, I’m moving people to look inward for answers they’ve been seeking about themselves –– i.e. questions we should be asking ourselves.”
She first planned to do a “self-help advice column,” along with a marketing campaign.
“It turned into more of a humorous take on self-help quotes, and that led me to just doing a collection of questions,” Clark said. “I want to make it interactive; when you propose a question to someone, you’re giving them a task. If I were to do just quotes, I don’t think I would be able to engage the audience as well.”
She’s doing a “looped motion graphic” for the show and screen-printing freebie postcards with different questions on each.
Prep for show
In February, the seniors sold posters, stickers and prints they designed at Localtopia, an annual market for small businesses held in Williams Park. The money from their sales went toward the gallery space, among other things.
Then earlier this month, the class went to Studio@620 to divide up their spots for the show. That helps them determine how much space they have for their pieces.
The day before the show, they set everything up.
Scheiber and other classmates worked on the show program with the descriptions of the theses. Instead of having their headshots taken for the program, Nam Ho did charcoal portraits of each senior to go with the descriptions.
The class coordinates everything, down to the food and drinks and finding photographers. They want to document the show before tearing it down the next day.
Epilogue: What’s next after graduation?
“I’ve made some really awesome connections, and I met one of my very best friends here, too,” Clark said. “The class can all get on each other’s nerves, but everyone is really supportive, accepting and always willing to help each other.”
Clark ultimately wants to land in Los Angeles. Although she graduates in May, she’s tied to St. Petersburg because of a lease that’s up in July.
In the meantime, she plans to do freelance projects and continue working on her brand, BE MAD HONEY, currently making earrings and keychains.
“It’s still up in the air, but as of right now I’m planning to move to LA in the fall,” Clark said. “I’m really open to where I want to work, although I am very interested in working in a creative studio, doing branding, silkscreen, editorial design etc.”
Scheiber recounted how the 19 students became friends.
“I feel like we all got really close because, especially at the beginning of the program, it was terrifying, and nobody had any clue what they were doing. So we all got together because we had to survive.”
Scheiber wants to study motion graphics and animation after graduation. She has her eyes on an online motion graphics school called Mograph Mentor.
She discovered her love for motion graphics during her first semester of the program. The assignment that sparked it? A two and a half minute kinetic typography project — something similar to a lyric video.
Her older sister and her husband are animators. Another sister and her husband are motion graphics artists.
Scheiber’s other goal is to leave Florida — maybe even the United States — and travel. Although she grew up in St. Pete, she hates the heat.
