GreenSmith Energy Management RISD Liberal Arts 2009 Nature Photographs
RISD Liberal Arts 2007 Blackwater Poster Big G
RISD Liberal Arts 2008 Body Landscape Everything is Water
Regeneration Eye Lake Mandala cyanotypes
Typography Poster Painting letters and words National Council of Women's Organizations
Black and white photography Figure drawing The Big U
Chinatown poster and book Recycler website Artist poster series
Postage stamp series Autumn Icon design
Flowers Symbol Nation Small V

Symbol Nation / Illustrator, Photoshop, InDesign, Mixed Media / 9 x 9 in. / May 2009

America is a country with strong moral and cultural values. I began this project wondering whether there is a correlation between American imagery (the idea of the American Dream) and American values. Living in such an image-driven culture where I am bombarded with a lot of visual communication, I question my role as a communicator as I strive to create meaningful graphic design. For my degree project I intended to create visually rich, conceptually interesting graphic design focusing on a set of American symbols and re-interpreting them. What I found was a sense of personal identity and nostalgia, as well as a history of American visual culture. Symbol Nation functions as a photo essay, a subjective narrative that offers the reader a glimpse into my personal, imaginative journey across the country through printed pop culture and media.

Symbols: the flag, the urban, the circus, the automobile, the mall, the suburban, the Hollywood, and the Great American West.