Auburn University senior and graphic design major Caroline Webster received the Gold Award for Best in Show in the 2023 UCDA Design Awards. Her design was showcased at the UCDA Design Awards Show as part of the 2023 UCDA Design Conference in Atlanta. It was printed and constructed as a literal “House of Cards” over three feet high. It was a project inspired by designers Charles and Ray Eames and brought to life by printer and design conference sponsor Slate Design Group. The piece aimed to bring awareness to sustainability and climate change. Caroline described it as her most significant and challenging project of the semester. I spoke with Caroline and her professor David Smith about her inspiration for this project and seeing it all come to fruition.
Q: David, can you tell our readers more about this assignment? Is it recurring, what are the parameters given, and what is the goal for the students?
David: The House of Cards project is the last big assignment in the “Graphic Processes” course, taken at the same time as “Introduction to Typography.” The assignment is recurring because I see so much growth in the students as they go through the process of solving this problem.
The project is based on the Charles and Ray Eames House of Cards, an interlocking card toy designed in the 1950s. The students are to design both sides of ten cards on any subject of their choosing for a theme. One side of each card is image-based (photographic or illustrative), while the other side is type-dominant by referencing some aspect of typographic anatomy. Two additional parameters for the project are that the student design should be inspired in some way by a mid-century modern graphic designer and that the Puzzler font by Emigre must be used as a textural element in the design.
The ultimate goal of the project is for the cards to have an overall unified design scheme while making each card unique and interesting in its own right. The best designs usually end up having a layered concept based on the theme. This is a complex and challenging project for the students, so it still surprises me to see how successful many of the solutions turn out. While I’ve made adaptations to the project, I should admit that I did not conceive the idea. It has been in our program for years.
Q: Caroline, can you tell us about your goal with “House of Cards”?
Caroline: My main priority was to educate the viewer on a few points about sustainable energy while creating a design that would draw the viewer in and make them want to see more.
Q: What challenges did you run into while designing this project?
Caroline: I was completely new to [Adobe] Illustrator, so learning the software was a major learning curve. I was also using my trackpad instead of a mouse or stylus, so that proved to be a bit of a challenge, as well. There was a physical component to this project where we constructed the cards after finishing the designs and getting straight, crisp cuts around the narrow cut-outs was a bit of a task.
Q: How do you believe this project is preparing your future as a professional graphic designer?
Caroline: This project made me start looking at illustration-based design as a real possibility for me. I loved the process of creating each illustration and watching the compositions come to life. It also made me realize how design and activism can work together to get out important messages and information, which is something I am now very interested in. It challenged me to work quickly while retaining the quality and the overarching goals of the project; since we were given a long timeline to finish it, it helped me focus on time management, as well.
Q: You very cleverly tied together standards of design and typography with standards in fossil fuel energy – what inspired you to make this connection, and what do you hope people take away from it?
Caroline: Since this project was more open-ended and we were able to decide what theme and direction we wanted to take, I decided I wanted to use it as an opportunity to say something important to me. Sustainability and climate change are major issues we are currently facing and that need immediate response. I believe more can and needs to be done to not only educate but also to enact change and ensure our planet’s future, as well as our own. I want people to come away from my design knowing more about sustainability and how that relates to energy than they did before and hopefully use that information to continue advocating for these issues.
Q: Those of us who attended the UCDA conference in Atlanta were privileged enough to see your cards live and in the flesh! I can only imagine how cool it was to see your designs realized. Can you tell me what it was like for you to work with Slate Design Group, and your experience seeing your work large and in person?
Caroline: It was so amazing to see the project in person! I will never forget it. I had no idea it was going to be printed so large and it was a real surprise and an exciting experience. They did a wonderful job. They were also able to keep the same dimensions, so they looked the same as the original deck, but bigger and better constructed!
Q: Is there anything you would like to add about your experience with graphic design, developing new ideas with students, or something you'd like our readers to keep in mind?
Caroline: I love graphic design more than I could have ever imagined starting three years ago and it is in large part because of the faculty at Auburn [University] and my amazing peers. It is such a warm and supportive environment that pushes you to be your best. My classmates are so talented – I could go on about them for hours – but they are so amazing to collaborate with and get new insights from, as well as just being some of my very close friends.
Some of the best advice I could think to give would be to surround yourself with others who are just as passionate as you and who push you to be better.