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2021
Impressions
Senior Thesis
Exhibition
About 2021 Impressions
Senior Thesis Exhibition
This year's senior show encompasses the design work of 38 well-equipped, eager graphic, industrial, and interior designers who are excited to show off their concepts and creations with you. Design has the ability to enable, impact, and reflect change in the world. Our thesis projects mirror just that: focusing in on an issue of some sort, big or small, and presenting a solution in an organized, logical, and effective way.
This year's theme Impressions is about what we have learned thus far in our educational careers, the connections we have made, and what lies ahead. Although we are unable to make our first impressions as designers and professionals to you in person, we hope that we can still make a positive and lasting one through this digital format. As we take our next steps, whether it be entering the workforce or continuing our education, it is time for us to figure out what impressions we want to make in the world.
— SASD Senior Class 2021
The Senior Thesis Project’s Goal
The Thesis Project begins for each senior at the onset of the 2021 Spring Semester, with its main emphasis being for our students to choose a Thesis Project with significant depth and breadth within the first two weeks of this semester. Our project’s focus is for student work to embody both thoughtful design and skillful execution and thereby highlights a full Product Development Process. The process also mandates that they concurrently consider marketing and production sensibilities as they have evolved their designs.
Their individually executed design process should become evident as you review these projects. It is expected that each student exhibit a level of design proficiency, which is commensurate to an entry-level professional design position. Our class discussions have focused on defining human- centered innovation, coupled with a focus to have students follow a systematic design methodology.
Giving Thanks
The Longest Year
It feels like this was the longest year of our lives. The Covid 19 pandemic has made everything more difficult and completing your education is a bigger challenge than it was before.
You all know now that extraordinary things happen that change our lives completely. You lived through it this year! Somehow students and faculty recover and adapt, making the extraordinary, the new workable normal. It is remarkable how well you all have done this year and prepared yourselves for a life in professional design. Maybe we can all look back at this year sometime in the future and remember how much we learned and grew in this “Longest Year.”
The 2021 Senior Show Student Committee has done an amazing job! Their faculty members deserve credit for helping to evolve their approaches to online shows, and always encouraging great design work. Thank you all for your extraordinary efforts to design and organize the 2021 Senior Show!
Professor White’s class, Business Practices and Ethics, has been working on the 2021 Senior Show all semester. Professor Munch, Chair of Graphic Design helped make a great online show a reality.
The Senior Thesis professors Matto, Santarsiero and Munch have done an impressive job bringing their senior classes to a brilliant conclusion for another year.
Finally, I would like to thank all of SASD’s faculty and staff, and all design students for their faith in themselves and our collective ability to carry on our high level of creative work and innovation.
— Professor Yelle, Director
SASD, Chair Industrial Design
Behind the Show
Thank you to the Business Practices and Ethics class, led by Professor White, for their semester-long work to create the senior show. Having taken place in the school's gallery in the past, these students welcomed the challenge of an online
format and were solely responsible for the concept, implementation, and execution of the website.
Farewell
Dear SASD students:
Congratulations, 2021 SASD graduates. You worked through an unusual final three semesters of college. It asked much of your resilience and grit. Simply put, it wasn’t easy. Your career challenges will ask as much or more of that grit you have demonstrated so well at SASD.
The most valuable attributes for success are a curious, inquisitive mind and an unparalleled work ethic. Keep an eye on the evolving needs of the world and strive to offer solutions. Out think, out create, out work and you will thrive, however you define success for yourselves.
This 2021 Senior Show marks my tenth year at SASD and, after 38 years, the end of my professorial career. I am retiring to southern Austria where its history and unfamiliar culture will make every day an adventure. I have enjoyed my years at SASD. Working with eager students is very fulfilling. Hearing from my former students is rewarding. I encourage you to keep in touch at alexwwhite1@gmail.com.
— Professor White
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