Description
Graphic design involves creating design solutions with effective communication and accessible information. Graphic design is also a literary practice, shaping language, imbuing words with new layers of meaning. After years of struggling with systemic grids and geometries for the purpose of communicative clarity, I started to feel conflicted as a graphic designer because even though I was bringing form to words, the reality of imperfect, human communication was being cast aside. I became curious about words, thoughts, and gestures we withhold when we communicate, and what their material forms and formats can look like. Interested in the mechanics and thinking behind experimental poetics, I started to think about the generation of form and meaning behind words, contemplating how to reclaim and materialize fragile language that operates in nonlinear ways when we communicate. For my MFA thesis exhibition, I produced More Than Words, a body of print-based work that contemplates the verbal-visual possibilities of communicative breakdown— moments in-between words when we pause, hesitate, or even repress what we mean to say. Writing technologies from traditional letterpress and typewriters to digital fabrication collide to explore palpable tensions and fragilities of language in the form of visual poetry. In our current moment of constant communication, what can unsaid sentiments, filler expressions, and verbal gaps look like when written and shaped into existence? More Than Words was exhibited at the University Gallery at San Diego State University’s School of Art + Design from November 26th through December 6th, 2018. The exhibition consisted of four series of prints that explored issues of communicative breakdown, offering visitors the opportunity to view letterpress-based work inspired by creative writing, visual poetry, and graphic design methodologies. The DVD-ROM, an appendix to the project, is available for viewing at the Media Center of Love Library at San Diego State University.
