Graphic Design

Sharayah Cochran, Art History was recently named as a Humanities Research Institute Graduate Fellow. Grace Eunhyn Bae, Art Education and Samantha Jenae Jones, Design for Responsible Innovation, were named as Graduate Fellows of the Interseminars Initiative, 2024-2025 CONGRATULATIONS!  

Giant Congratulations Ali Ibanez, Graphic Design (2024) for competing in the Paris Paralympics on the women’s basketball team. Go Ali! Also congratulations as well to Phillip Croft, Industrial Design (2025) and Isaiah Rigo, Industrial Design (2024) for making it to the paralympic trials for Track and Field.

Fresh Press Co-Founder and Graphic Design/DRI Associate Professor, Eric Benson, with e. ainsley (MFA 2021 Sculpture), Co-Studio Manager & Program Coordinator and  Meredith Hislope (Art Education major), Co-Studio Manager will be featured on Mid-American Gardner tonight at 7 PM on WILL.

In 2024 Molly Briggs co-founded the Panoramic & Immersive Media Studies (PIMS) Yearbook, a digital & hardcover book series published by De Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston. She serves as executive editor alongside Thorsten Logge (Universität Hamburg) and Nicholas C. Lowe (SAIC). The PIMS Yearbook surveys the historical and contemporary landscape of panoramic and immersive media, an interdisciplinary field that includes optical and haptic devices; 360-degree paintings; long-form paintings, photography, and prints; dioramas; museum displays; games; gardens; literature; maps; music; printed matter; still and moving images; virtual and augmented reality; and theatrical productions. Whereas the notion of the panoramic describes extensive, expansive and/or all-embracing vistas, immersion refers to porous interfaces between representation and the real, observer and observed, nature and culture, and past, present, and future. Together, the concepts of panorama and immersion have catalyzed time- and space-bending strategies for creating, experiencing, and transforming culture, ideas, and built social space across the arc of human history. Scholarly essays are subject to double-blind external peer review; conference papers are subject to single-blind internal peer review; other sections (visual & creative essays, restoration, management & field reports, reviews, reprints, and the forum) are edited by named section editors. Volumes 1–3 (2024–2026) will be published open access (OA) and in full color. Volume 1 (2024) is in production and will be released in December 2024 with 380 pages and 190 figures. The call for contributions to v.2 (2025) is live and closes 7 October 2024. Learn more at https://www.degruyter.com/document/isbn/9783111335575/html?lang=en and https://panoramacouncil.org/en/publications/the_panoramic_immersive_media_studies_yearbook/.

Eric Benson with alumni Veronica Pham and E. Ainsley have article published in Advanced Materials Technologies. Silvestre, Sara L., Morais, Maria, Soares, Raquel R. A., Johnson, Zachary T., Benson, Eric, Ainsley, E., Pham, Veronica, Claussen, Jonathan C., Gomes, Carmen L., Martins, Rodrigo, Fortunato, Elvira, Pereira, Luis, Coelho, João, “Green fabrication of stackable laser-induced graphene micro-supercapacitors under ambient conditions: Towards the design of truly sustainable technological platforms,” Journal of Advanced Materials Technologies (2024).

Dr. Molly Briggs, with collaborators Dr. Wei (Windy) Zhao and Dr. Sharon Suiwen Zou, received a 2024-25 Transdisciplinary Global South Community-Based Learning Program Development Grant for their proposal, "Place Making and Rural Tourism in China."

Nekita Thomas, Eric Benson, Joshua Pridemore, Holly Strickland, Noelyn Stephens, and Yiqi Xiao recently had their article, "How to Explain Design Research To Your Friends" in the Design Research Society Digital Library published.

Brittany Bindrim (Graphic Design 2007 BFA) just dropped her debut album "Velella Velella." The album may be purchased here.

In a recent article in the U of I News Bureau, Art & Design faculty, Jena Marble, Eric Benson, and Juan Salamanca were featured for teaching their students about AI tools and how to use them in their design process.

Lisa Mercer recently published “Racism Untaught: Revealing and Unlearning Racialized Design,” that examines how racism is perpetuated through design and how to use anti-racist approaches to counter it. Read the article here.

Graphic Design Associate Professor, Eric Benson with collaborators, Professors Tina Sleiman and Dr. Fatme Al Anouti (Zayed Univ), received a $54,000 grant from Zayed University in the UAE for a project entitled "The Fresh Press-Enterprise: A Sustainable Action Project for Paper Production within the UAE using Locally Sourced Agricultural Waste."

Regather: A 10 Year Retrospective of Paper Art at Fresh Press Monday, October 16– Friday, December 8, 2023 Merwin Gallery, Illinois Wesleyan University, Ames School of Art and Design, 6 Ames Plaza West, Bloomington, IL (galleries closed for Fall Break 10/20 & for Thanksgiving recess 11/21-11/26) Aya Nakamura Steven Kostell Courtney Cross Karen J. Spiering Megan Diddie Quinn Ferris Eric Benson E. Ainsworth Veronica Pham Claire Reynes