This is a digital re-creation of a book I created for my senior project course, required to graduate and receive my BFA.

"Viral Aesthetic Laboratories," or "VAL," is an imaginary design studio that I created for my senior thesis project at the University of Connecticut School of Fine Arts. The goal of my project was to create a contemporary design book that was essentially a monograph for this imaginary studio. I named this book the "Viral Aesthetics Laboratories Lab Manual Volume One." This project allowed me to take existing work that I had previously done in and out of class and represent it in a uniform fashion, as well as create new work playing on the viral theme, which constituted the majority of the project. This book serves as a collection of ideas and visual experiments, as well as my current design portfolio. The idea was that if this were a real product, the book would come with a DVD with a number of video shorts using the themes of the virus, growth, and movement as the basis, and a set of stickers, meant to be used to spread VAL's visual virus. Part of the process for creating this book was making a visual identity for VAL as well as creating a system of organizing and displaying the different kinds of work within the book. Some of the projects shown in the book were school assignments, and some were personal projects, though most of them were created specifically for the book.

The book is about 100 pages, double sided (50 sheets), printed on 44 lb HP glossy double sided brochure paper. I printed it on my inkjet printer and bound it myself using a flex binding. Some of the pages printed were transparent vellum, but they are not shown in this digital re-creation of the book. The last two pages of the book on this site are a collection of some of the stickers I printed and distributed at my senior BFA show, where the book was displayed for several weeks.

The poster depicted below was also displayed alongside the book.