Cadence

When I began working on my thesis I had finite ideas regarding handcraft and design. For me, design was to be clean, precise and generated on the computer. While handcraft was my hobby, something I did in my spare time. There was an element of shame that I associated with my craft works and thus it was separated from my design practice. 

In order to overcome this segregation of handcraft from design my first project worked through iterative exercises generating multiple compositions completely by hand, which were photocopied and evolved through trial and error. 

Traditionally graphic design was done using paste-up techniques where type and image were cut and glued into place and then photographed. The final composition aimed for transparent immediacy—where the hand of the maker was eliminated completely. The goal of this project was to utilize the general idea of paste-up but to celebrate the maker by allowing the cut lines to remain, the tape to show and the scuffs and dust from the photocopier to persist. 

Each composition has at least five iterative stages and moves from cut and paste techniques to the addition of pen and ink drawings and finally to the interference of sewing and found objects. When completed, the layouts were scanned and placed into a digital layout for a book. The compositions were not altered through software but software was used to crop the individual layouts and to compose each spread. 

This exercise allowed me to see and embrace imperfection in graphic design. Handcraft enters harmoniously into design to form the final artifact, Cadence. The title is in reference to the rhythmical changes that occurred during the iterative process. 

Thank you to Davisd cabianca and Sandra Gabriele—my thesis committee.