Building Bridges
Building Bridges is a publication that encompasses the initial musings for my senior design thesis. The phrase “burning bridges” refers to how relationships are broken entirely between people. However, by naming my thesis research “Building Bridges,” I sought to embody a sense of community and connection right off the bat.
During my time at Appalachian State University, I was part of the Plemmons Scholars, an organization dedicated to fostering leadership skills within a select group of scholarship students. Much of the organization was dedicated to service and community building. Being part of the Plemmons Scholars was a large part of my identity while in university, so I attempted to combine the ideas and values of the program with my design skills.
The publication follows my semester-long journey in determining what I personally wanted to explore in my senior thesis. I tried out a lot of different topics, ranging from material play to illustration. Towards the end, I found myself gravitating towards combining what I learned with the Plemmons Scholars community and my design work.
While I did not stick with the thesis topic and projects I developed in this publication, I learned a lot about myself and what I am interested in as a designer. Additionally, I had the opportunity to try out a lot of brainstorming and reflection methods that I would like to incorporate into my usual design practice.
One of the projects I developed is Circle. Circle is a localized, community-building app that combines the discussion forum aspect of Reddit and the image-posting aspect of Instagram to continuously build the local Appstate community. The goal is to help fold-in new students with existing communities, resources, and events to better help them adjust to a new environment. Additionally, it would help create connections between students that may not otherwise have the opportunity to meet.
The project would have focused on developing a simple app mockup through Figma. In Building Bridges, I outlined a theoretical working schedule that described the logistics of completing Circle.
