2021 Senior Exhibition Artists

Melissa McIsaac

Art + Design: Graphic Design and Illustration

About Melissa McIsaac

Melissa McIsaac is an illustrator, painter, and graphic designer with an interest in packaging design. She received her MA in technical writing from Northeastern University in Boston and worked as a technical writer and also engaged in freelance illustration projects. She has a strong background in technical writing, journalism, and oil painting. Melissa owns a website promoting her oil paintings of the Maine Coast and donates the earnings to wildlife organizations. She currently works as a UX designer evaluating and revising Adobe Captivate educational applications. This enthusiastic artist plans to combine package design with illustration, while working on the web as a UX designer.

Statement

I am designing a 24-page children’s book called Let a Spider Spin a Web. This 9” x 12” book is designed with Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop and overlaid with montage textures on top of the main cartoon characters and spiders. I will use a mix of single, and full spreads, along with playful typography to create dynamic energy in the storyline about the importance of spiders. This project draws on many skills including illustration, page layout, and typography. I also used basic composition skills from oil painting to plan the basic layout of the page and the placement of typography around the images.  Beyond this project, I hope to become a wildlife advocate and use this book to teach children in public schools about wildlife humane education.