Kristina You is a multidisciplinary designer based in New York, NY and a recent graduate from the ITP Program at NYU. Her practice focuses on UI/UX, interaction design, print design, and brand development.


︎︎︎Thesis

Assignment 1: Ideation



Current Thoughts on Thesis Ideas:

1. Before I came to ITP, I was based in the field of graphic design, mainly with print and 2D mediums. The biggest reason that drew me to ITP was to expand my skillset and learn about more mediums to extend my work into more tangible and interactive platforms. With that I always was interested by creating design tools with technology that would expand the possibilities of visual design. I think that the work that I have been creating at ITP and hope to create with my thesis project would definitely be considered an extension of my previous works whether it was in graphic design or visual storytelling.

2. Recently I have been thinking a lot about communication, language, letterforms, typography, and how they all relate with each other. One of the reasons why I began to think about communication is because I have a lot of social anxiety when speaking and tend to think about what I want to say multiple times in my head before actually verbalizing it and often times it doesn’t really happen the way I intended to. I also think it has to do with the way we communicate with each other in such a digital-centric world that we live in. I find that in the midst of cancel culture, abbreviations, slang, emojis, and lack of context, intentions and emotions can so easily get lost and decontextualized within digital communications. It’s confusing and often times frustrating and sometimes I wonder what someone is really trying to say or imply. All of this to say, I have been thinking a lot about ways of better communication between people and how important it is becoming in such an increasingly polarizing society.



Thesis Inspirations:

a. Tora Thuland’s ’01chan.org’

b. Duncan Figurski’s ‘Perpetual Abstraction’

c. Sam Heckle’s ‘don’t look for the love of god’

Something that I found common within these projects is that they are introspective and also critical of a social phenomenon that may have been overlooked. I really enjoyed how each project translates their topic matter into different perspectives and forms. In addition, I resonate with these projects because they are similar to my current ideas for my own thesis project in that they examine one’s relationship to or existence within the online space.



Formal Inspirations:

Recently I have been very interested in and inspired by modular and generative design systems. Today I got to attend a guest lecture by Rune Madsen, a former ITP professor and I became further interested in creating a design tool to generate various visual outputs. This is something that I would like to explore more and possibly incorporate into my project depending on how I decide to frame my topic.




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Last Updated:  April 9, 2023
kristinayou00@gmail.com