Themester

Maggie Rushton is one of the designers in this year's Themester poster series and they also do work as a Themester Design intern. They discuss the process of creating their design and the work they do outside of Themester.

 

This year’s theme is Lux et Veritas, or Light and Truth. What does that mean to you and how did you incorporate elements of that into the design? 

Because “Light and Truth” is IU’s motto, I viewed it through a lens of the information age and the truth as in the information we receive. That’s why I made my poster very digital, very matrix or retro analog inspired because we get so much of our information through computing systems, but a lot of it is either misinformation or straight up disinformation, so how to reconvene what is actually true and what isn’t.  

 

Were there any challenges you encountered when designing this poster? If so, what were they and how did you overcome them? 

There were a couple drafts of the eye. I think the first eye, the multiple screens aspect looked too small, but that wasn’t too hard to fix — you just make them bigger. I also did a little bit of tweaking on the font and spaced it out, so it wasn’t all cramped in one corner. My biggest issue was exporting it to be printed. That’s what drew me up the wall for a bit but how that ended up was communication with Tracy. We both had to reference tutorials on how to export this file and not have it all fall apart and how to keep the clarity. It made me feel stupid because I was like ‘why do I not know how to make this into proper margins?’ but Tracy was really kind about it and we both found a way.  

 

You are one of Themester’s design interns this year. Where else can we see your work for and outside of Themester? 

I’ll do the occasional social media posts for Themester as well as the occasional flyers like for example, you may see an image or design for Themester lunches as well as ones that say, “follow us on IG.” Outside of Themester, I will occasionally have art in shows around campus. For example, this past spring, I had a lot of work in the “Home Bound” show that was in the IU Sciences Library and I had another work that was in the first ever LGBTQ+ center art show and that work is now in their permanent collection. As of this fall, you should be able to walk into their building on Seventh St. and see it up which I think is really cool.