This story was updated on Tuesday, April 30th at 11:30 pm.
On Friday, April 17, over 124 communication design (CD) seniors at Parsons School of Design participated in the CD Thesis Open Studio.
The thesis showcase was hosted by the students in the New Student Center on 39 W 13th St. and lasted from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., allowing guests, teachers, and peers to trickle in and out of the space.
The room was laid out like a science fair, giving visitors and presenters flexibility to roam and chat. Some tables had computer screens to display websites, others had books of work, and many utilized the wall space to hang up models.
CD senior Stacey Lee draped her large red hand-crocheted blanket from the top of her section’s wall to the floor, capturing clusters of visitors with the project, titled “I Could Not Resist.” “This blanket is kind of a testament to that brute force that I really had to use to push through the semester and translate emotional weight into physical weight,” You said.
Taking an unconventional approach to her thesis, Lee explained that people are surprised coming to the showcase because they don’t always know what to expect. “There’s so much here that you wouldn’t expect from a communication design major,” she said.
“Some people talk about their personal anecdotes, some people talk about AI, some people talk about natural elements,” junior CD student Deeva Thomas said.
For CD majors, the thesis show is one of the only larger-scale opportunities to display their work. The projects, which few students began developing in the summer of 2023, had a visible diversity in concepts and looks.
“It’s super inspiring and super motivating to see what people have accomplished in one year and also pretty rewarding to see there is such a different variety in everybody’s work,” Thomas said.
“This is cool because this is not my first group of students who have graduated, but the first time I had gotten to see the thesis of students I have taught who are graduating,” Parsons Core Type 1 & 2 professor, Eric Doctor said. It was important for Doctor to see his students’ growth and “how the foundations that we laid two years ago blossomed into something,” he said.
For graduating and rising seniors, skimming each other’s theses inspired ideas for their own work.
“Sometimes when I design I get really stuck on my own work and I can’t tell if it’s good or not and it’s fun to see what other people are doing,” Kim said. “I feel like I didn’t get this chance [to showcase work] my junior or sophomore year, and I feel like it would’ve been much more helpful if I had the chance,” she said.
To many, the creation of their thesis and the confidence to present it was reliant on perspective, feedback, and positive support. Being able to show the final product was not only important for the individual but also representative of the CD community as a whole.
“Having the opportunity to work every single week with a class of people who know what the project is is so invaluable,” senior CD student, Haley Moore said.
In the past, the Open Studio was done in sectioned classrooms, making it less of a social event.
“Space plays a huge role because I think it [CD Thesis] is kind of vast, and it’s more space for people to showcase their work,” junior CD student, Haya Singh said. “I feel like last time everybody was crammed in their classrooms,” she said.
CD is one of the only design majors that doesn’t have a set space for showcases. “I still kind of wish we had one of the exhibition spaces that the other majors get because it’s a little bit more of a formal gallery,” Lee said.
Still, many were pleased with the Open Studio, its snacks, and the selection of work that gave a glimpse into how upcoming creatives will contribute to the world.
Senior CD student Faye Arranz created a virtual reality space which was accompanied by poetry, type, and models. While Arranz articulated how important her project was for the future work she and her peers would do, she said it was really a time to catch up with peers.
Nearing the last few hours of the Open Studio, many of the seniors left their stations to mingle with familiar and unfamiliar faces.
Some were shocked to see how many classmates they didn’t recognize. “There’s a lot of people that I haven’t seen, even within the major there’s people that I never run into that I now get to see their new work,” Kim said.
For Arranz, this rare opportunity made the event that much more important. “These are the people that I’ve been working with for four years and this is the first time that everybody’s here, the first time we’re in this new space, and it’s really beautiful,” Arranz said. “Everybody has this sense of relief that we did it, we’re done,” she said.
In a previous version of this story, CD senior Stacey Lee was incorrectly referred to as Stacey You. The story has been updated to include the correct name.