Department Of Design

A Team of BYU Students Worked on the Award-Winning Game as Part of an Animation Program Capstone Project

Five BYU Illustration Students Were Accepted into the Society of Illustrators’ 2022 Student Scholarship Competition

Wright hopes to open up the conversation about the difficult experiences that missionaries have while serving through her graphic novel

Madison Baker, an Illustration student, took on the role of club president to help her classmates stay connected after the club had closed down

Design’s Liset Rivet explains the contests that lead to student-designed masks and zine

The Design Kids competition encourages young designers like McCall Keller to create new designs and show off their talents

A prestigious design magazine chose senior Hunter Young’s design as a finalist in their annual competition. BYU student Hunter Young is a finalist in the Communication Arts annual Design Competition. Young is in the Graphic Design Program of the Design Department. His piece, “OMSI,” will be featured in the magazine’s annual design edition. “OMSI”, named after the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry, is a rebranding project for the museum involving an interchangeable logo system. Young, who is from Portland, Oregon, said the OMSI had a big influence on him when he was growing up, and he wanted to rebrand it because it was due for a change. “I knew that I wanted to create a contemporary branding system that could remain flexible, since the museum has many departments and events,” Young said. “I think because I was working on something that was personal to me, it made the process a lot more fun because I cared about it and was focused on making it the best I could.” The project took about a semester to complete, with a lot of editing and adjusting. Even now, after it’s been submitted for and won a couple of different awards, Young said he is continually working to make the piece better. The Communication Arts Design Annual competition showcases winners from one of the most prestigious design competitions in the United States and throughout the world. Out of the 2,900 total entries, just 126 pieces were accepted as finalists. While Young had submitted his project for a different award, he didn’t know that his professors had submitted it for the Communication Arts competition, but he said he’s glad they did. “We really have such amazing design professors who are always looking out for you and wanting you to succeed, which I am so grateful for,” he said. “Without their help and encouragement, I probably would not have entered, thinking it was too far of a reach for me.” Young grew up reading Communication Arts magazine, which he said is a staple in the design world. When he learned that he was a finalist and that his design would be featured in the annual design magazine, he was beyond excited. “Being a finalist really means a lot. Above all it has motivated me to keep creating and pushing myself. To be a finalist alongside other designers and studios that I have looked up to for so long is an honor.” Young hopes to make a career out of design. He said he’s looked into other career paths, but in the end he always knew this is what he wanted to do. “I grew up in an environment that showed me not only the importance that art and design has, but that you can actually have a successful and fulfilling creative career, despite what many people might say,”

Downtown Provo is becoming an outdoor art museum, with murals dotting the blocks and adding color, shape and story to the buildings. The mural project has been ongoing for over two years and there are now over 30 giant pieces of art in the downtown area of the city. Provo resident and artist Ainsley Romero created her mural on the side of June Audio Recording Studios, 39 W. 200 North. Because it is on a recording studio building, Romero wanted the theme of the mural to be musical so she created caricatures of people playing different instruments and singing. Romero, who teaches graphic design at Brigham Young University, designed the mural digitally first, then projected it on the wall to complete it. The creation took two weeks and many hours each day, with friends helping. “I’ve always wanted to do a mural,” Romero said. “I like the idea of the client being the city I live in. A mural is almost like a love letter to the city.” Read the full article at heraldextra.com.

“There were puffins flying off the edge of the cliff,” says photography major Sylvia Busteed Magleby (BFA ’20), who worked feverishly to capture Múlafossur Waterfall and the Faroe Islands village of Gásadalur behind it, bathed in fading golden-hour sunlight. She carefully balanced her camera on the wooden stem of a fence to take the snap, bracing against the chilly seaside winds. “This image captures the magic of the Faroe Islands,” says Magleby. “I did not know such a beautiful place existed.” Read more at magazine.byu.edu

Shreenan’s project was inspired by a 2019 visit to the Color Factory Interactive Museum in New York City

Lexi Nilson and two others created the book “Jane Was Here” using funds received from a Laycock Grant while students at BYU

As a senior graduating in design with an emphasis in photography, Mario Alcauter knows that a great photo is all about perspective. For his senior capstone project, Alcauter created a photography exhibit titled “La Línea” or “The Line” when translated from Spanish to English. Alcauter’s photos, taken at the international border between San Ysidro, California and Tijuana, Mexico, capture the humanizing details of the immigration progress. Alcauter hoped the exhibit would spark discussion on how borders can divide us. “People were becoming very polarized on the subject of immigration,” said Alcauter. “Either you loved it or hated it, and I wanted to give it a different perspective. It’s about trying to empathize and humanize people instead of making them into numbers and statistics.” This project is especially personal to Alcauter. At the tender age of six, he immigrated to the United States from Mexico, and because of his experience, Alcauter understands the unique struggles with immigration. Alcauter grew up in Visalia, California. As a teenager, he was introduced to Brigham Young University through the Summer of Academic Refinement (SOAR) program–a five-day college preparation program for multicultural students. Alcauter enjoyed the campus environment so much that he decided he wanted to study at BYU. Read the full article by Brenna Seeman at news.byu.edu.

On a picturesque seaside knoll, a peaceful dragon is mowing his lawn when Vikings arrive in the bay below. Eager to greet them, the monster brings homemade cookies. But his new neighbors aren’t having it. So begins the 8-minute BYU student animation Grendel, which won gold at the 46th Annual Student Academy Awards. Here student director Kalee S. McCollaum (BA ’18) shares the backstory. How did the story of Grendel get chosen? Grendel, a twist on the Beowulf legend, was originally pitched in storyboard form by animation student Erik K. Hansen (BA ’18). As he went through the slides and added explanations to the visuals, we were all laughing and felt the idea had a good amount of heart and potential. Read the entire Q&A in BYU Magazine's Winter 2020 issue.

The Utah map is endowed with a significant number of scriptural monikers, some of which will be familiar to readers of the Bible while others are unique to the Book of Mormon. These are at the heart of Daniel George’s project, God to Go West. George is a professor of art at BYU who received his MFA from the Savannah College of Art and Design and his BFA from BYU-Idaho. For his project, he has photographed a score of locations in Utah that bear scriptural names given to them by early settlers from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Few of these black-and-white photographs are striking, the range of grays eschewing any sense of black so that shadows and highlights disappear or become negligible (George’s is definitely not Ansel Adams’ high-contrast vision of the West). Benefit of the doubt suggests this is not due to a lack of skill but to a purposeful strategy — a desire to emphasize the semantic rather than the aesthetic nature of George’s project. Read the full story by Shawn Rossiter at artistsofutah.org.

All along his artistic journey, David M. Habben (BFA ’06), a BYU assistant professor of design, has been trying new things—new media, new subjects, and new styles. Amid all that variety, he says his message is consistent: “There is a world of ideas and experiences around each of us and inside us that is worth exploring.” Read more on BYU Magazine’s website.

Convocation for the Department of Art and the Department of Design will take place at 8 a.m. on April 27

Grant Hansen originally chose illustration as a major while preparing to go to Medical School, but quickly his plans changed. One thing he enjoys about the illustration major is how it focuses on applying all he has learned. “You can’t get through this major by memorizing the answers to the tests. It’s an industry that demands you actually know your stuff,” Hansen said. While at BYU, Hansen traveled to California with fellow BYU design students. There he started networking with AMD Radeon an organization who later helped fund his senior project. For his senior project, Hansen created and directed a virtual reality version of Jack and The Beanstalk. Hansen worked with several other students from multiple disciplines over eight months to create the final project. Hansen is hopeful their project will spark more interest in virtual reality projects on campus. He hopes he left a legacy of collaboration that other BYU students will follow. “I think that I had some impact on the people I worked with during my time at BYU,” Hansen said. “I hope that I helped reinforce the idea that we can accomplish greater things together than we can alone. That we’re just as free to do as we are to dream.” Wise words to share with others: “If you find, as most of us do, that you are your own greatest limiting factor: stop it.” Teachers that impacted your education: “David Dibble with his ability to squeeze the highest possible quality out of his students. Justin Kunz with his energy, experience and faith in his students to succeed. Bob Barrett with his sage advice, his quotes, his quotes, his quotes, and his excellent instruction. Beth Anne Anderson with her relentless positivity, her love of life and art, and infectious exuberance.” Movie title for your life: “‘What to Do When Lost.’ My life has consisted a lot of figuring out what to do when I don’t know how I’m going to get through a challenge.” Unique superpower you wish you had: “Time manipulation. You could get all your sleep out of the way in seconds, be an incredibly good athlete, be able to undo bad things that happen, get all the answers if I was ever on Jeopardy. That sort of thing.” Most meaningful experience at BYU: “I think I'd have to say the whole process of executing my senior project. It was life-changing. We were mentored by three BYU faculty members who were there to give us help and advice when we asked but generally allowed me to carry the project forward as I saw fit. Bless them.”