Maria E. Pelosi (she/her)
As a graphic designer, my work harnesses typography, branding, and moving image to create an impactful visual language. In my own creative pathway, I strive towards generating dynamic outcomes that make a statement through its assertive nature. I enjoy producing thought provoking work that is conceptually driven.
Looking to the future, I am excited to work as part of an energetic, fast paced team with bold ideas. I hope to employ the knowledge and skills which I have learnt and enhanced during my time at The Glasgow School of Art in this work environment. I am looking forward to approaching future briefs with the up most enthusiasm and determination in achieving a bold final outcome.
CARBON
Carbon is the virtual music festival that unifies people with a shared passion for music. The loss of social human interaction through the pandemic has created the need to explore and design new ways of connecting people digitally. The platform enables users to connect with friends and artists from around the world.
The process of creating the platform was split into two stages: designing the identity and also the functionality of the platform. The aim of the identity was to design the platform with assertiveness by using the logo as an energetic animation. The functionality was influenced by connecting users all around the world by zoom calls and messages, while watching a live set. Designing the platform with an ease of navigation was achieved by always keeping the ‘home’ button visible. Thus giving users the option to revisit their profile, browse live DJ sets and connect with the artists social media profiles.
THE PENGUIN RANDOM HOUSE STUDENT DESIGN AWARD 2021
For The Penguin Random House Student Design Award 2021 submission, I redesigned the book cover for ‘The Uninhabitable Earth.’ The book discusses the Earth’s bleak future from the effects of climate change.
The first concept I had was applying used objects, as images, found from the aftermath of a party. The objects symbolise how we have treated our planet as one big party, and we are now faced with the consequences of mistreating it. The other concept was using the symbolic image of an apple, from the religious aspect of purity changing to sin. The fruit has turned mouldy and the purity of this world has rotten along side it too.
CHILDHOOD MEMORIES
Part one- Childhood Memories- is a film project that identifies the necessity of enforcing child rights and child protection across society. The film is a reflection of the worlds trauma and how children are forced to belong in the same world as their careless, destructive and violent predecessors.
The process of editing this film involved collating my own childhood footage with found footage from the Iraq War and coverage of the British media, all from 2003. The aim of the brief was to produce a film with irony to make the audience reflect how all children should be protected from the brutal reality of this world. This was achieved by using ‘soundtrack dissonance’, a technique where the music played has no connection to the content. In effect, it strengthens the audiences emotional response to what they are viewing.
Part two – Childhood Memories- was created in response to the death of my innocence towards reflective nostalgia. This is symbolised by destroying my cherished childhood video tapes. This was influenced by Part one, as viewing my younger self alongside children of the same age, living in war torn Iraq, helped changed my perspective on recalling past memories. I burnt my childhood video tapes, representing the need to change my previous associations of my own innocence.
POWERFUL WOMEN IN FILM
The brief for ‘Powerful Women in Film’ was to design a book publication admiring the actors who have changed perspectives on political, social, historical and cultural issues.
The visual language is heavily typography and imagery based to convey the dominating role of women in the films mentioned. An elegant style is achieved by the use of light weight sans serif Aileron. Yet applying this type in upper-case creates a dominating and unapologetic narritive. The gold foiling for the front cover, along with screen printing pigmented gold ink for the chapter pages, further drives a sense of sophistication to the layout.
W.I.P. IDENTITY
When designing the ‘Work in Progress’ identity as a group, we had to create a virtual showcase containing three specialisms, including a broad range of individual work. A main priority was to ensure the identity didn’t dominate the work. To do this, we decided to display projects in a uniform system.
The approach we took towards designing the identity of the showcase was restlessness and applied this to the typeface. Also, incorporating the typeface in animations. Choosing the colour, florescent green, further states the restless visual language.
I worked on and produced all the content for the social media platform, instagram. This included designing instagrams posts and making a story for each person in Communication Design, incorporating their own work in it. I worked along side publicity to ensure the smooth running of the instagram.
Project Links
DAIR TO AIR
‘Dare to Air’ is a Nike Air Force One campaign that advertises the bold and fearless wearers of the shoe. The concept for the campaign is to convey the slogan, ‘Dare to Air’ as a confident statement using large scale typography in animations. Moreover, I applied imagery that directly indicates the youthful and energetic target market associated with wearing Air Force ones.
The process was split into two stages: designing the motion of type in the animations and creative directing the outcomes for the photoshoots. The aim for designing the animations was to make the type move to push the dynamic nature of the images. I achieved a fearless advertisement using typography and imagery to push the daring wearer.
