Lauren Watts: Type, texture and transformation in design

From painting and drawing to music and theater, Utah State University is home to a spectrum of artists, each working to hone their individual craft. Fourth-year graphic design student Lauren Watts is one such artist. 

“I started out my degree in drawing and painting but then switched to graphic design,” Watts said. “I like working in acrylic and oil if I’m doing something more naturalistic, but graphic design is probably my favorite thing.” 

Watts is currently collaborating with New York City-based fashion designer Pono Skousen.

“Working on the branding for his ready-to-wear and couture line is super cool because his stuff is going to be in a Vogue catalog this spring,” Watts said. “I’m moving back to New York after I graduate, so I’m excited to work with him and find other designers to collaborate with.” 

Watt’s love of art began as an exchange student in Germany when she was 15, sketching to pass the time. 

“When I would go to school with my exchange student, I wasn’t taking the coursework she was, so I would have to go to school and sit there, so to entertain myself, I would draw,” Watts said. “It started from there. I’ve drawn and sketched since I was little, but when I started again in ninth grade — that’s when it took off, and I started drawing a lot more.” 

Watts has gone on to study and practice various art mediums and is set to appear in the USU Graphic Design BFA Show on April 25. 

“I’m a very visual person. I love going to art museums, and I could spend literally hours in museums just looking at paintings,” Watts said. 

Mike Daines, graphic design professor in the Caine College of the Arts, has worked closely with Watts in several classes. 

“Lauren is extremely talented and extremely diligent . She thinks really deeply about what she’s doing,” Daines said. “She has a really sophisticated design sensibility and a mature sense that shows through in her work.” 

Watts’ current focus is typography, a subset of graphic design that centers around the formatting, arrangement and appearance of text. According to Watts, typography is a niche yet important element of any design — type helps set the tone of a piece and acts as a conduit for the message an artist intends to send. 

“I love type because it can communicate a lot with a very small amount of information,” Watts said. “There’s ways to change the type or switch out tiny components of type to portray a different message.” 

Typography plays a huge role in the realm of marketing and branding and was a major aspect of Watt’s work with Skousen.

“[Watts has] designed custom typography and created a really great brand for Skousen’s fashion line,” Daines said. “That speaks to the different levels that make Lauren a strong student. She’s traveling, and she’s collaborating outside of her discipline.” 

Type can portray a lot of subtle messaging beyond the straightforward meaning of the words. According to flux-academy.com, stylistic choices about bolding, italicizing, sizing and choice of font work to create harmony, draw attention and set the appropriate mood for the message and the piece at large. 

“Through school, I realized graphic design is a lot different from what I had in my head,” Watts said. “Still, I really fell in love with the reality of design where there’s this analytical side and a client-relationship side, but there’s also a lot of room for exploration and experimentation.” 

Some of the earliest forms of communication relied solely on imagery, as seen in Egyptian hieroglyphics and Phoenician phonograms. With the invention of the printing press and moveable type, typography became less about art and more so about informing and capturing the attention of the masses. Today, graphic designers can work with endless tools and typefaces to both create new and revitalize old typography.

“It’s really fun to go to an antique store and find old typefaces that feel dated in a negative way and do what’s called a ‘historical revival,’” Watts said. “You take the typeface and then update the terminals or the specific components to make it feel contemporary.” 

Art is often a reflection of the time and culture in which it is made. Entire academic fields are dedicated to studying the ways in which visual formats — art, film, photography, architecture and pottery, to name a few — shape how people come to understand the world. 

“I love studying visual culture, and I think that it’s really interesting because it can inform how our society functions at a really deep level,” Watts said. 

Art is also used to address larger societal changes and movements, serving as a form of protest, awareness or a statement about some broader change.

“I had to make a scene about post-structuralism and feminism a couple years ago, and that was probably one of my favorite projects,” Watts said.

Artists often draw inspiration from each other, finding new methods and interpretations to guide their craft.

“There’s this painting at the [Metropolitan Museum of Art] called ‘The Intercession of Christ and the Virgin,’” Watts said. “It’s a medieval Catholic painting that’s really interesting to me because I got to do some funded research on this painting, and I spent a year straight just looking at it and finding all the information I can on it.”

American neo-conceptual artist Jenny Holzer is another inspiration for Watts.

Holzer is known for her carefully composed, thought-provoking phrases displayed on buildings, cars and galleries in major cities. Her art provides commentary on society, politics and day-to-day life.

“I think that Jenny Holzer is really interesting. I love her projected type on buildings and all of the other projects she’s done,” Watts said.

As the world continues to change and new technologies such as AI crop up, there’s a level of uncertainty to any field which once relied on handmade mediums. For graphic designers and artists feeling uncertain about what these changes could mean, Daines urges people to react with flexibility instead of fear.

“It’s an evolving industry,” Daines said. “Always be open to evolving what kind of technology you’re using and understand that there’s a lot of different possibilities within graphic design. Embrace and implement all the different kinds of technologies.”

Watts advised aspiring artists to see the value in criticism and incorporate it into their work.

“Always go to a critique open-minded,” Watts said. “The point of a critique is to learn, so you should never feel disheartened after a critique. Just be open-minded to the feedback. I think that’s what makes people successful.”