Graphic Arts & Design Senior Exhibition

Lillian Salazar

Lillian is a Graphic Arts and Design major at Benedictine University. She was born in the suburbs of Chicago and grew up in Glen Ellyn, Illinois. 

Lillian has always loved the arts ever since she was able to hold a pencil in her hand and place her imagination on paper. As a child, she favored her art classes. She had experimented with all sorts of arts, from painting with watercolors and oil paints to traditional art. She collected pencils that varied in shades. This helped her learn how to control pressure for the rest of the mediums she chose. She also learned to bring art to life with colored pencils and markers that blended smoothly on the right paper. 

She enjoys painting occasionally but prefers the ease of a sketchbook and pencil. As things advanced, she primarily uses a stylus and tablet to draw. It can be easily transported everywhere with an unlimited amount of paper and hundreds of tools to choose from. 

Outside of art, she enjoys spending time with her family, exercising, playing games, and diving into new books. In the future, she hopes to open her own design business. 

Artist Statement:  I try to sketch every day as drawing is what I love to do. I had an immense amount of support in pursuing Graphic Design as my career, where I can let my creativity flow. Art has many meanings. 

To me, I see art as a way to share creativity and joy instead of keeping it to myself. It is not to take a quick glance but to observe the work of art and the meaning behind it. Before I move to the digital realm, I like to sketch as many ideas as I can to see how my creativity is expressed. One technique that I carry with me is setting a ten-second timer and listing words that relate to what I am trying to create. I can then pick objects to work with by manipulating them or chopping them up in some way. Even when I have an initial sketch and move to the screen, I end up with even more ideas. 

As I create for projects in Graphic Design shapes and colors are not randomly chosen instead, they are researched on emotions and trends. Critical thought is placed when deciding between a serif or sans-serif font. It depends on the design and what I am going for. 

Layout design involves many sketches and toying with to decide on how the text will combine with images. I put a lot of time, effort, thought, passion, and creativity into each piece, and seeing the end result is always rewarding.   

Tyreese Ray

Tyreese was born and raised in Chicago, IL. He’s majoring in Graphic Arts and Design at Benedictine University. The main medium he uses is hand drawing and digital art, Adobe Suite to make and edit pictures. 

One key theme used in his work is unity. He’s big on attention to detail, so he tries to make his work as clean and unified as possible. Another theme would be one of hope, trying to inspire viewers. 

He has been invited to participate in the Benedictine University’s Art Gallery in 2019 for the first time. He had the honor of receiving the Plus Honorable Mention Award for his charco drawing “Horse Head.” Tyreese was also selected to participate in Benedictine’s URSA program for 2021 and 2022 where he got to present a variety of his work. Apart from taking many graphic design classes, he’s also taken some drawing and oil painting classes. 

He loves to create and is thankful for this gift, for it gives him a piece of meaning in life, helping him learn about and analyze the world around him. He’s currently in the process of illustrating a children’s book with his twin brother. Together they hope this project is successful and will lead to many more.  

Artist Statement: Being a graphic artist, my job is to impress my viewers, so I am to create content that contains something that catches the viewer’s attention by making good use of hierarchy, unity, and movement. My ability to hand draw helps me conceptualize things easier; it gives me a more insightful perspective to know how and where to place things. 

The art mediums of my focus are graphic design, hand drawing, and oil painting. I tend to start with multiple idea sketches and choose one or more that I find will help get the message across. I try to stick with the idea that less is more, so sometimes I try not to add too much content as is needed. I also like to keep complementary colors to help keep the unity of the composition. Movement is important aspect in motion graphics, so my aim is to always make meaningful motion, giving each item that moves its own characteristic that adds to the overall message. 

As I learn more over time, I’m better able to incorporate and combine more design principles to express the selected theme or idea.  

Maria Hilby

Maria grew up in Rockford, IL and was blessed to be raised in a Catholic family of 15. She has been very fond of drawing and creating ever since she was a young child, for any type of art project was her favorite in grade school. She was even more inspired to take art classes during high school because her older siblings did so along with several other sports. 

Other than art, Maria loves hanging out with her family, learning more about her Catholic faith, eating sweets, and playing sports and games. Maria Hilby is a graphic design major and track athlete at Benedictine University. She gives thanks to her family, classmates, boyfriend, teachers, classmates, coaches, and teammates for helping her get through successes, failures, and life experiences to where she is today. 

But most importantly she gives praise and thanks to God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit and Mary the Mother of God for all the countless blessings and opportunities given to her. She hopes to produce wonderful work with her God given talent after her time at Benedictine and hopes to start her own greetings card business.  

Artist Statement: My art style is soft, fun, playful, and elegant. I tend towards reds and blues in my color palette with the liking of blue green. I try to apply truth, beauty, and purpose in all my designs either through text, color, imagery, pattern, symbol, movement, animation, texture, contrast, etc. A lot of my projects are more detailed and seek an aesthetic appeal. 

My composition layouts are intricate and complicated because I hope to create something that has never been seen before or to create a challenge for myself. I have learned that simple can be better as well which I pushed myself to accomplish in my mobile health app, Rigo. 

The fun part about designing is trying to be as creative as I can and giving myself a challenge for every design. If there comes a design problem, there are sure to be multiple solutions, I search for the best. Graphic design also comes with a lot of research and trial and error.  

Asia Robinette

Asia is a student at Benedictine University, majoring in Graphic Design with a minor in Marketing. Born and raised in Illinois. She has always loved creating designs since she started taking graphic design courses in high school. She even got to help design her high school’s yearbook. 

Design is a way for her to help others express themselves through the arts. Some of her favorite mediums are digital art, acrylic painting, and photography. Her admiration for art has increased throughout her college career of being a graphic design student. She is on the softball team at Benedictine University. This has given her inspiration for sports related designs that she has created. This has also taught her how to multitask, manage her time, and to meet deadlines. 

As an upcoming graduate in May with her bachelor’s degree in Graphic Design, she is very excited to start her professional career in Graphic Design.  

Artist Statement:  As a graphic designer, my work represents my interests in sports with an elegant and modern style. 

My designs include different shades of blues and purples because these colors represent calmness and give the artwork a sense of elegance. I make sure that the colors I choose represent the type of feeling I want the viewers to feel. With every new project I'm given, I hope to leave a strong and successful impact on those who view it.  In my artwork, I make sure to tell a story throughout my designs with the use of typography, photography, and illustrations. 

I always do enough research for every design project I have because I want to learn more about the recent design trends and use them in my artwork. I explain my design process through each of my designs so people can have a better idea of how I came up with each one. 

I'm proud of my projects and am confident in my growth as a graphic designer. The end results of my projects is my favorite part in the design process because I love to see what I started with and what I ended up with. I'm excited to continue my graphic design journey when I graduate from Benedictine University.  

Alexis Trippiedi 

Alexis is a senior Graphic Arts & Design student here at Benedictine University. She has had a passion for creativity since a very young age with hand-drawing and coloring. She was even a winner of a coloring contest in kindergarten, which was sponsored by the local fire department. 

However, it was not until her junior year of high school that she knew that Graphic Arts & Design was the career that she wanted to pursue. She took a digital design class and fell in love with the concept of designing with different texts, colors, shapes, effects, and tools with a variety of Adobe programs on the computer. She knew that she made the right decision when she felt that Graphic Arts & Design was more than just a job; it was something that she enjoyed even in her free time. 

Her plan is to use Graphic Arts & Design through Marketing, Communications, or Public Relations, as she has had the privilege of having those experiences here at Benedictine University through internships and leadership opportunities. She is so excited to use all these skills and abilities in the real world to see where it takes her!  

Artist Statement: Alexis loves to create designs about her personal life, so she is able to share her experiences and emotions with others through art, so it tells a story. Before she starts a design, she gathers inspiration to get her creative juices flowing. Once she has decided on what she would like to design, she incorporates aesthetics, unity, and simplicity. She would consider herself a perfectionist, as she spends many hours on each of her designs until she feels that they are flawless. 

The Graphic Arts & Design field is flourishing, and she feels extremely confident that she will be able to succeed by using everything that she has learned and developed from her education.    

Andres Saavedra 

Andres is a Graphic Design major who graduated from Benedictine University. During his time at university, he was unsure of continuing Graphic Design, he switched majors briefly to explore computer science to see how a change in learning would be. While not being successful in Computer Science, he learned a valuable lesson about working hard and it re-inspired his passion for Graphic Design.  

Growing up in Miami, FL he was inspired by the vibrant colors and warm weather which has translated to some of his work containing but not being limited to using warm colors on many designs. Andres enjoys video games and skateboarding during his free time which at times can heavily inspire some of his work. Many of his designs have been made with the assistance of geometry and symmetry to create a clean and well-rounded design.  

Andres also works for a clothing store with his friends from high school in Downtown Aurora, where he makes t-shirts and various other types of designs for a multimedia brand named “Six:Thirty” that produces music videos, makes clothes, and a magazine to feature local talent in the Chicago scene.  

Artist Statement:  As a designer, I’m constantly inspired by logos, clothes and designs I see as I’m out in public. Ever since I was in middle school, I was always interested in the ways logos and many other forms of designs were made. Now whenever I’m watching live TV, or watching a youtube video, or even just looking at someone's t-shirt I’m always wondering about the process that was done in order to get to the final product of a design. 

Since I’m currently making designs for a clothing brand, I can’t help but always wonder about the process behind a design and I’ve become a lot more critical of clothes I choose because of this.  Learning the Adobe Suite and being comfortable with all the programs has made the possibilities of what I can create endless, and it excites me to be able to learn more. 

During the courses I took, I ended up struggling with After Effects and Adobe XD the most, but overall, these programs have taught me the most and felt the most rewarding to learn. Because I am comfortable with all the programs, I can create a design for almost anything I am interested in such as skateboard decks, video game UI,    t-shirt designs etc. and that is what makes me the most happy.   

Kaitlyn Estopare

Kaitlyn was born and raised in St. Louis Missouri and found her way to Lisle Illinois for college at Benedictine University where she will graduate with a bachelor's degree in Communication Arts and a minor in Graphic Arts and Design. 

Kaitlyn tends to work in the digital area of design with occasional drawing and painting. Kaitlyn enjoys creating modernistic and pop visual arts to convey her style.  

Artist Statement:  Art has been a part of my daily life ever since I was young, from drawing to painting to designing I have found that designing is not just a job or career path, it is a way to free the mind and the hand. 

My favorite part of Graphic Design is doing research. I love seeing other designers' work, what their process was, and their inspirations. Over the course of my studies, I learned a couple of things about myself and the field of graphic design:

First, sometimes less is more.

Second, Adobe software can be a pain.

Last, never to doubt your abilities, because, sometimes, when you let your hands go and turn off your mind,

you can create something beautiful.