Camden Habgood: capstone

Abstract

The artist's statement: My obsession with design began with scribbled letterforms filling the margins of my notebooks. The creativity of choice, the constraints of legibility, and the challenge of variation grew into an obsession with type, and ultimately, graphic design. My work has evolved to center on crafting visual brand systems, custom typography, and environmental brand experiences that move people. As my practice developed and I had the opportunity to work in design in various settings, I became less interested in design as something to look at and more interested in design as something to move through. I think about how typography, hierarchy, and visual structure can guide a person through a space the same way it guides a reader across a page. Designing for marathons, campus events, and conferences revealed to me that signage can become direction, branding can become atmosphere, and printed materials can become artifacts of an experience. I am drawn to the translation of ideas into physical form—where a concept leaves the sketchbook and begins to exist in the world at human scale. I'm inspired by moments where people gather with a shared purpose and the ways that design choices get them there. My work finds meaning when humans experience it—starting a new conversation, accomplishing a goal, reaching a destination, or engaging meaningfully with a brand.