Chloe May
Sophomore
Pre-Interior Architecture and Fine Arts
Book Cover
Ninth Street Women
Using Illustrator and Photoshop, I redesigned the book cover of Mary Gabriel’s Ninth Street Women. To pay homage to the abstractionist tradition of bold, gestural marks, while also finding a way to visualize how these women were erased from the art canon, I used procreate to create ‘spray paint’ forms which obstruct their faces. I chose to maintain a restrained, modern aesthetic through my color palette, typeface, and text alignments. These choices thematically support the text, as it is set in a bleak, starving art world in New York City at the onset of WWI. Against this stark backdrop, the accents of vibrant primary colors mimic how these artists turned inwards into art, finding light in times of fear.
Dimensions: 11 x 17 in.
Ideation Sketches Concept Poster
Graphic illustration process
Objects in sketchUp
To create this ‘creative morning scene’ I used SketchUp to model and render objects. I selected these five objects because of their formal variety and thematic unity, also because they all sit on a shelf above my bed. I began by sketching each object, breaking them down into fundamental geometric forms to guide the digital modeling process. After constructing and texturing each model, I built a simple interior setting to contextualize the composition. I then refined lighting, shadows, and color to enhance depth and realism. I chose bright lighting, a playful color palette, and art themed objects to reinforce the energy of my ‘creative morning scene’.
Geometric sketching
Individual component development
Full room scene
Black and White Graphic Drawing
This final illustration represents the culmination of multiple stages of abstraction and revision. The forms are originally inspired by my mary-jane shoes, which I did close-up pencil sketches of to break down the objects core forms. These studies evolved into a three-part ink series emphasizing contrast and form. Using the proportions and shapes observed in those drawings, I made many iterations of different abstracted designs. Using my successful elements from different drafts, I created my final image. The psychedelic landscape shares motifs of the original inspiration, including sweeping organic lines and stitching-inspired details.
Dimensions: 8.5 x 11 in.
Intial graphite sketches
Abstract drafting
Ink series
Environmental Poster
For this assignment, I created a poster to raise awareness about sulfide mining and lake health. After drafting sketches to visualize my message, I used Illustrator to develop shapes and organize them alongside my text blurbs. I aimed to establish a clear visual hierarchy through proportion and color to guide the viewer’s eye upward through the poster. I achieved this by increasing the size of the fish skeletons toward the foreground and using blue and black text against a contrasting red background. The stripped-back aesthetic supports my goal of making a clear, readable, and eye-catching poster design.
Dimensions: 11 x 17 in.
Ideation sketches
Layer view
DS 220
From 2D to 3D and back around again
This multi-step project explores transforming two-dimensional surfaces into three-dimensional forms. The initial phase required making a three-dimensional volume from a single sheet of paper, by only cutting and folding. These limitations required me to make many iterations, before finally transferring my draft from my gridded paper to construction paper with an applied surface design.
My structure is inspired by Scandinavian design as well as Dr. Suess's architectural illustrations. Repeated arch motifs and pronounced vertical proportions establish rhythm, unity, and hierarchy. Additionally I wanted to manipulate the way the structure casted shadows, notably in the corner notches and arch cutouts/windows, to enhance depth and create spatial complexity.
The design was then scaled up in cardboard. This medium was conducive to my structure as it provided more stability while maintaining the same aesthetic value. For surface alterations, I applied the duct tape vertically in an area with lots of segmentation, creating an implied through line down the structure. Selective exposure of raw cardboard at corner brackets and the horizontal strip across the middle section had practical benefits and unified the disjointed sections.
In the final phase, the structure was reinterpreted using foam, transitioning from folding a surface to manipulating a voluminous medium. To accommodate the foam’s limitations, I adjusted my original design, limiting intersections and cutouts. Assembled with wooden joints, the structure was finished with surface textures simulating wood grain and ribbed concrete. This final structure maintains the formal and aesthetic goals of the first design, while being reimagined in a new medium.
The project concluded with isometric and projection drawings of the structure on paper, documenting the structure’s geometry and spatial composition.