MFA Graduate Research Project | Dylan Rush MASK

In hopes of one day becoming a professor, Dylan returned to his KUCD family but this time for a Master’s Degree. Over the past three and a half years, Dylan found a love for using design for change and the greater good and he hopes to inspire other artists to do the same.

Throughout my time here in the MFA program, I’ve developed a trend of centering my projects around social issues and designing for the greater good. The classes I’ve taken demonstrated to me the power design has on the world and I started to truly believe designers and artists have a unique ability to make this world we live in a better place. We use illustrations to say the things we sometimes can’t find words to describe so I wanted to focus my thesis on the power of illustrations. With this project, I wanted to use alternative methods of illustration like sculpture, typography, and cut paper to help raise awareness and create empathy for individuals living with mental health disorders. This isn’t always an easy topic to discuss so my goal was to use imagery to convey the message someone isn’t comfortable verbally expressing and turn a feeling that is ordinarily invisible into something that is now visible and concrete. Sometimes by seeing things, we are able to understand them better than when we just hear about them. In my attempt to help people better understand the severity of mental illness, my hope is that individuals who had a hard time understanding these disorders can become more empathetic and invite their friends and family to open up to them in a safe atmosphere.

More Work by Dylan