THESIS: UNUSUAL, CHANCE, IMPERFECT, UNEXPECTED

For my thesis project I have focused on the interaction between visual communication and improvisational theater. This semester-long study has followed the process of improv technique to initiate design games and prompts. These games and prompts, both self-directed and collaborative, engage with the unusual, chance, imperfect, and unexpected. Through this work I have been meditating on suspending judgement and acting upon suggestion, revealing the ways in which the final outcome is not always planned but happened upon. This mindset embraces performative tactics like constructing something out of nothing, creating environments and relationships, and embracing imperfection inherent in improvisation. In this way I am interested in the process of making through performative design. I classify this performative design as being work that creates engagement through authorship. Through the creation of this body of work I have become uncomfortable with the process in order to reveal what can arise through unrestricted play.​​​​​​​

My thesis project also presented a challenge, within the framework of improvisation is this notion of imperfection. For me, graphic design has always been a question of rules and perfection. This feeling that design should be perfect sprang from my seeing craft and design as one, coupled with the fact that within my life I have always been one to follow and value the rules. I challenged myself with this project to explore the imperfect, to trust in my formal abilities as a designer and the process of improvisational theater to discover something unexpected and unusual, in my work and in myself. For more, check out my process book.