This project was made to fulfill the graduation requirements of the 2017 Masters in Visual Communication Design program at Arizona State University. In the final year of this program, graduate students are required to complete a capstone course that is a hybrid of a thesis and applied project. This capstone project is generally researched, designed and completed in one semester (though students do have the option to further a project completed in the prior semester). As this is a hybrid course with design research, students are required to have committee members and to defend their work during an exhibit designed for the public and to have a book that details their research process.
The research project was on how coloring could reduce stress in hospital patients. To further the healing aspect of this project, mindful practices were researched which lead to sacred geometry being incorporated into the designs. Then there was the fact that there were millions of subjects that could be turned into coloring pages, so in order to reduce the stress I was feeling in choosing what to have as a main subject for the coloring pages animals that were associated with healing or good fortune were found. To further reduce the number of animals, we focused on those that were local to Arizona and were associated with the Navajo, a local Native American tribe.
To further the exhibit aspect of this project I designed a community coloring wall, a display for the coloring pages used in the research that could be hung on a wall and be folded up for easy transport, and several ways for the public to leave feedback on how they felt about the exhibit. Several handouts about the research and the animals featured were made and distributed.
On the opening night of the exhibit, over 300 of 400 individual coloring pages were distributed– many people taking one of each of the designs provided.
