Cultivating Connection

Services

Print
Layout
Motion Graphics
Audio Production

Year

2020 – 2021

My senior Design Degree project completed over the Fall of 2020 and Spring of 2021. We were given free rein to pursue a concept and project that we were passionate about. Being a Graphic Design and Communications major, I chose to create an interactive gallery exhibit, conducting interviews and centering my project around exploring the connection lost during the Covid pandemic and in modern society.

Read Project Introduction

In a world where people keep their heads down, staring at their phones, avoiding strangers’ eyes; where everyone must practice social distancing and reduce their circles of support; genuine, meaningful connection becomes further and further out of grasp as people struggle in solitude. While older generations blame social media and technology, younger generations turn to these forms of communication for connection. Even divided and distanced, the means to talk is not the issue – rather the lack of time we spend actually trying to understand each other and connect.

Short form internet content. Brief conversations in passing and behind masks. People left grasping for any sense of normality or stability in their own lives and forgetting to look outward. We’ve lost examples of how to actually listen to the world around us and one another. In missing this chance to connect with others and the communities we are a part of, we lose an opportunity to do any real inward reflection as well. Time spent in peaceful contemplation and conversation is a privilege we are not granted when it feels like our society is falling apart.

However, people are eager to reflect and share their thoughts with others – they just have to be given the opportunity.

My degree project, Cultivating Connection, aims to encourage people to consider the way they interact with the world and the person they are within it. It aims to inspire deeper interactions between acquaintances and shows how we are all intertwined.

Non-transactional listening has become a radical act. And when we listen for deeper meaning, resisting any inclination to immediately categorize, judge, or offer solutions, we create a space for the speaker to continue sharing their truth. Taking the time to truly get to know someone in our polarized and fast-paced society takes intentionality. And it can revolutionize not only the way we interact with one another, but the way we live.

Gallery Showcase

The main component of the project was a gallery experience. I interviewed people in my own life, people I wouldn’t otherwise have been given the chance to speak deeper with, and created a poster series, showing the power of radical listening to really get to know someone.

The poster design demonstrated the honing of my graphic design skills, including layout and type design, while the nature of the interviews emphasized the communication and societal concepts I had studied during my degree. To create consistency around the theme of the project, I also created a distinct “brand” identity that was carried throughout the series. Each poster features found objects and content from the subject's life, presented in a way to reflect the story they told through their interview.

As part of the exhibit, viewers were invited to scan the accompanying QR codes to experience the digital component that I created to accompany the physical posters. The audio (taken from the interview with the individual) and motion graphics, add levels of depth, giving the audience a way to participate outside of and beyond the physical gallery space, emphasizing the context and environment of the time I was creating in.

Postcard Set

I also hoped to demonstrate how to take this way of thinking into our daily lives. I created a postcard set, featuring different affirmations, to encourage people to do their own reflection and then reach out to make a connection – a close loved-one, or just as importantly, someone further away in their circles. I hoped to emphasize the significance of a multi-layered community where everyone cares about one another as people, on a foundational level, not just in their relationship to one’s self.

Gallery go-ers were invited to take postcards as they left. I also had printable versions available online for those only able to view the project digitally.