2023 Senior Exhibition Artists

Maggie McAuley

Art + Design: Graphic Design

About Maggie McAuley

Maggie McAuley is designer from Braintree Massachusetts. From a young age, she had a big imagination and always loved art and every aspect of it. As a child she especially loved cameras, painting, and posters. She knew one day she would go to college as an art student. She is passionate about logo design, crafts, film cameras, and sketching. She enjoys bright pastel colors, abstract and warped typography, and trying new mediums. This spring she will graduate from the College of Visual and Performing Arts with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Graphic Design.

Statement

My capstone project, Little Guy is a crocheted plushy brand made for everyone, especially collectors and lovers of cute things. Little Guy is not only a branding and packaging project, but also a passion project. During the making of this capstone, I was able to re-connect with my inner child after primarily creating corporate, sophisticated and “by the book” graphic design throughout my college career. I value nostalgia, girlhood, textures, and doodles and I use these things as inspiration during my design process. With this project, I was also able to better my crochet skills (since I had only first tried this medium around a year ago) and dive deeper into exploring package design.

The boxes for Little Guy are inspired by milk cartons and food related packaging, with the brand’s information listed on a nutrition fact-style box on the packaging. I wanted to create a friendly, bubbly logo by hand and make patterns and faces using the logo. The animal characters started as random sketchbook doodles from years ago but came to life after putting a color palette and together. The yarn I used is a thick, fluffy plush yarn. I purposely made the plushies slightly different and imperfect, to give them each more personality. Plushies and crochet have become extremely popular during the past few years, especially during the pandemic with everyone stuck at home longing for new trends and comfort. While brainstorming ideas, I was afraid to do something that has already been done, but I stuck with my intuition because I knew I could make Little Guy something of my own. I knew it would be a fun end to my senior year.