The ECS Faculty Profiles booklet was designed to help ECS students guide their educational careers, promote interdisciplinary discussions among the ECS faculty, and help foster productive connections among research, workforce, and industry.
This book has come about through the efforts of the College of Engineering and Computer Science’s faculty—for the content; of Dean Lorenzo M.Smith—for the inspiration and his aspiration for a strong engineering community; of Denise Anderson—for the project management; of Deborah Frost—for the graphic design; of James Ster—for the photographs, and of John Johnston—for editing.

Visual communication of the California Smart Grid Center’s inspiration, context, and aspiration. I worked as art director and designer with Shanna Rossi on this Triptych.

Climate change—pH, temperature, sea levels, and melting glaciers—has prompted public desire for non–carbon based energy technology.

Historical transitions from one energy source to another and from one service delivery technology† to another is normal.

The future of energy is a decentralized grid, including local energy generation technology, storage systems, and tools for efficient and effective energy use management.

The “dead bunny” poster was created to advertise the Engineering and Computer Science’s senior design presentations. My inspiration came from the exhausted engineer students as they finalized their research for presentation.

The Home Area Network display was 3D and interactive. I designed a poster to showcase smart grid* technology.
* A nickname for the utility power distribution grid enabled with computer technology and two-way digital communications networking. The term encompasses the ever-widening palatte of utility applications that enhance and automate the monitoring and control of electrical distribution networks for added reliability, efficiency and cost effective operations.

The Senior System Design Project poster was designed to advertise the interdisciplinary class for Engineering and Computer Science College of CSUS.

Erg

The problem statement: explore designing complex systems through the design of a deck of playing cards.

The concept is educating young people about renewable energy. The suits are sources of energy, solar, wind, geothermal, and wave. The imagery is both iconic (looks like) and indexical (is related to) to reinforce the concept. The style is chalkboard, to make learning fun. The numbering systems of each suit comes from the  means of measuring that source of energy (solar is octs, wind is knots, wave is velocity, and geothermal is pressure). The name of the deck is Erg, a unit of energy. The concept works because it has unity; every part of the design reinforces the concept.

Festival of New American Music

The problem statement: Design a two-sided poster that looks like music and will be used as the concert program. Explore the relationship between type and image, and the complex typological hierarchy of the scheduling information.

The concept is repetition and syncopation of shapes and tones of color, giving an appearance of volume, rhythm, and unity. Typographic principles of hierarchy were used to organize the schedule for readability.

Water, Essence and Potential

Design a poster and a postcard to advertise a four-person art show, the reception, and the artists’ lectures. Treat all artists equally. The artists supplied all images and written content.

The concept was the round meniscus of water and its conformity to gravity, with the color palette and texture coming from the artists’ works. The Concept works because the artwork was the focal point of the poster and the color palette united the different artist’s works. The rounded shapes created a softness, a hierarchy for the information (isolating the lecture series for emphasis), and a feeling of gravity with the vertical negative space.

CAP, Create A Purpose, is  a fictitious cable channel for programing focused on tapping into the vast potential of solid waste. Combining design skills with disposed material (like PET-plastic, or glass bottles) a community can both clean their environment and raise their standard of living. Projects are social, economical, and ecological in nature and the creative nature of re-purposing makes it fun, empowering, and hopeful. Programing would document projects and give "how-to' instructions.

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

Book cover and text block

The problem statement: choose any book with a plain text file available for download. Design the cover as a system where each face of the book—front, spine, and back—is interesting in and of itself, yet is not predictable. Any strong design element used should be repeated on all three surfaces, The design should flow to the inside pages.

The concept is duality and transformation. The baize door—a padded door connecting two domains which signals a threshold between staff and employer—is used as a metaphor to represent the duality of human nature and society. The smoke is symbolic of transformation. The concept works because it reflects the style of the writing yet is mysterious, with clues that add interest.

Carmina Burana

The problem statement: explore making abstract images by photographing paper. Use these images to design a series of postcards that communicate the emotions of a play. Design around the postal requirements for a postcard.

The concept comes from the themes of the ballet Carmina Burana: fate, love, and the return of spring. It works because the abstract images are similar enough in nature to emphasize their emotive differences which depict the themes. The intense color palette reflect the dramatic emotions of the ballet.