Craft and content shine at the 2018 BFA Design thesis show

Every fall semester, a cohort of BFA students from CCA’s Illustration, Industrial Design, and Graphic Design programs graduate with a culminating exhibition of their thesis works. This year’s BFA Design thesis show was held at the Perry Family Event Center on Kansas Street, San Francisco. With themes ranging from cross-cultural communication to advocacy and stress relief, the works of these young designers had us feeling optimistic about the future and excited to see them launch their practices.

Illustration students presented a collection of works with diverse applications, including skateboards, book covers, dollhouses, pillows, and wall decals, to name just a few. Lyssa Park’s work, in particular, really stood out. She approaches her craft “with serious subject matter in a playful way,” says Professor Michael Wertz. “We’re drawn to the bright colors and bold shapes and then surprised by the depth of the tale she’s telling.” To visualize this duality, just imagine a pop-up book based on Kafka’s The Trial.

The Industrial Design students covered a wide range of themes. Quite a few projects focused on anxiety relief through light, touch, or monitoring. Kimberly Macdonald, project manager in Graphic Design, led the exhibition planning team and walked the show with me before opening night, excited by the energy of installation and all the work the students had put into the show. We were both really taken with the craftsmanship in Powei Chen’s Meditation Light that emanates changing colored light through concentric acrylic panels. Yong Wang’s Lanjing Mars Station seemed perplexingly minimal, a matte white model of what looked like a train on struts. But the web address at the bottom of Wang’s poster led to a richly envisioned speculative Mars space station for 2025, complete with research and funding plans.

The Graphic Design students focused on empathy, exchange, and webs of reliance, support, and lineage. Graphic Design Chair Rachel Berger explained, “The thesis is one of my favorite aspects of our program. The students work in such a broad array of media. The only constraint on their projects is that they have to respond to a word chosen by the faculty. This group's word was ‘social.’ I was so impressed and intrigued by their creative interpretations of the word.”

Across faculty and administration, many of us took delight in Elaine Meng’s game Battle of Love. Meng told me that “for this game, I examined Chinese Gen X social and cultural attitudes around love and marriage, using survey data to compare viewpoints and reactions of both generations on the challenges of loving and finding a partner in marriage. The game gives an opportunity for Western Millennials to navigate in the shoes of their Chinese counterparts as if they had Chinese parents… I felt happy when a Chinese player told me that the text on the cards was exactly what her mother would say.” At the exhibition reception, guests mingled and laughed as they played the game.

Lucy Peterson solicited stories from survivors of sexual assault, employing her skills and platform to give voice to others. Peterson’s work, along with many other students’, is timely and aware. This grounding in current politics and positions of agency for designers contributes to the optimism we feel about the show overall.