What used to be nothing but white walls is now a room full of color, design and stories to be told.
The Visual Communication Design BFA Exhibition was held on April 18. Here, EWU seniors in the Visual Communication Design program, or the VCD program, showcased their final projects.
One of the largest pieces was titled “Reef Conversation,” and was designed by twins Thomas and Joseph McMicheal.
The brothers creation appeared to be a large rippling blue wave, standing well over six-feet tall, with facts and statistics about the diminishing coral and how humans can help to stop it.
This piece was inspired by information the McMichaels received while vacationing in Hawaii recently.
“People tend to think that the reef is only affected by people that live near it; however, it’s really caused by things like global warming,” said Joseph McMicheal.
In addition to their stationary wave, the brothers also created an interactive piece, which was shown on a computer, and displayed an aquarium. According to Thomas McMicheal, all of the fish were captive or sustainably sourced to add to the meaning behind their piece, like a vibrant purple and orange fish known as the Royal Gramma, and the coral was locally grown.
“We’re doing more of a traditional type of design, which is print design; we’re doing a new type of design, which is interactive web design; and then we’re doing kind of unconventional design by having the aquarium. We tried to apply design principles to that when we were considering the composition of our rockwork or color theory in our coral choices,” Joseph McMicheal said.
Another piece showcased was “Simply You” by Caroline Henriksen.
A tablet stood as the centerpiece on the wall, while surrounded by different colored cards that read things like “the protector,” “the counselor” and “the provider.”
Henriksen’s piece was an interactive game where guests could choose between a series of images to find out which card best represented their personality.
“My original project stemmed from the idea of personal growth and gaining insight into your own actions. So, I based it off of Myers-Briggs theory,” Henriksen said. “But rather than use something that is already been done, I focused on something that was more easily connectable, which was characterizing each personality type.”
Henriksen’s piece stood right next to another with the words “Tick, Tock, Tic…” above a park bench and pigeons painted on the floor.
Reesa Anderson was the designer for this piece, known as “A 3 o’clock Mystery.”
Placed strategically on the backs of the 2-D pigeons on the floor near the bench were the names of Anderson’s comic book character’s social media sites, which Anderson had created herself.
Anderson said that she incorporated social media because it is relevant to our culture.
“The goal of the piece is to kind of combine different platforms into a story and use these contemporary tools that we have with social media,” said Anderson.
Also going for a more modern piece was Joseph Snodgrass’ “The Education of the Modern World.”
According to Snodgrass, the large poster created from brown recycled paper was more of a map to the modern world and was broken down into three perspectives: the cosmos, the systems and the layers.
“The idea is to inspire intellectual curiosity. The ideal behind this is understanding this from a larger perspective,” Snodgrass said.
“For the BFA show we were asked to find a solution. Design is finding a solution, whether its visual communication, architecture or industrial design. So, that’s what I tried to do,” said Snodgrass.
The other pieces showcased at the exhibition were “When Hogs Fly” by Nate Johnston, “The Multifaced Project” by Lauren Campbell and “Worth” by Charlie Murphy.
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