From Evidence to Dialogue: Using Makings as a Tool for Visual Communication in Graphic Design

Markings - physical remnants, material impressions, and random arrangements - exist as more than just visual evidence of activities. These records can reveal additional details about the particular circumstances in which they occurred. As the often disregarded visual cues provided by markings contain explicit information about the situation from which they were derived, this thesis examines the potential and usability of markings left by human spontaneous activities as a mode of communication. It shows how specific processes and occurrences can be depicted by emphasizing the use of markings in visual communication. Through various methodologies developed based on examining collected markings from activities through videos or photography with minimal interference, this thesis demonstrates the significant conceptual potential of markings as a medium for visual communication. It also inspires a new design framework that serves as an innovative redesign for information delivery.

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Up In The Air

Up In The Air is a capstone project completed in December 2022 in the Thesis I course. The project focused on understanding how a visual language created from markings could evoke my cultural background and childhood memories. My childhood in Seoul, Korea, is one of my most cherished memories. One of my favorite recess games was Gonggi (공기). This traditional Korean children’s game has a simple rule: throw five stones to the ground, then sequentially throw one into the air, and catch one while grabbing another on the ground. These steps repeat, adding more complexity each time. The way the player throws the stones into the ground and their particular random arrangements sparked a thought that the remains of the player’s gameplay could become a project related to my childhood memories. After connecting each set of markings from Gonggi’s play, a typeface built entirely from randomly generated markings was used to narrate the story of my early times in Korea in my native language.

Up In The Air

Tracing the Days

Tracing the Days is a capstone project completed in December 2022 in the Thesis I course. The project aimed to prove how literal and conceptual self-markings could leave traces of my daily activities to demonstrate a new approach to a visual journal over seven days. During the busiest time of the day, I tracked myself using the Nike running app to collect different traces of my motion without being aware of how or where I was walking. Additionally, the habitual activities of taking screenshots and deleting unwanted emails were included as conceptual markings to be incorporated into the moving traces as part of this visual journal. The results from these activities, with no predetermined goals or instructions but simply following my needs and habits, produced a unique visual representation that depicts how each day developed like a diary. The project also focused on integrating the marking process through a conceptual approach, translating activities from digital interactions on my device into visual graphical elements that can be used to design a person’s journal in straightforward ways. Note: The images used in this project were screenshots taken from online sources, as well as images received via iMessages, Kakao Talk messages, and Instagram direct messages.

Walk-Roll-Trace

Walk-Roll-Trace is a typeface design experiment completed in November 2022 in the Thesis I course. The experiment focused on creating a unique typeface based on attempting to visualize unstable, irregular movement through the markings created by physical remnants. The same marking tool from the previous project was used to manually draw the entire set with very little control. The appearance of painted 26-letter sets looked very jagged and lacked readability, but the physical markings were able to successfully convey the unstable nature of making. The result of this experiment proved how invisible conditions within certain activities can convey information.