nonentity
Senior Studio Thesis
Instructor: Halim Lee & Mary Yang
nonentity explores the relationship between a tool and a human as well as ways to break, repurpose, and reconfigure default systems. This thesis consists of several projects, the thesis book, and pictures from the 2025 BU BFA thesis show.
What is a design thesis?
Definition: A design thesis is a self-directed investigation where you identify a question, explore it through research and experimentation, and produce a body of work that reflects both conceptual thinking and design craft. It’s about defining your own problem space, building a framework around it, and translating that into a coherent visual system or experience.
Defining the interest & problem
Interest:
As a designer, I've always been an experimenter. I loved using new methods or figuring out different ways of producing assets. So for thesis, I wanted to use this opportunity to study the tools we interact in a daily basis and I wanted to understand the ‘invisible rules’ built into design software, like the presets, constraints, and automated behaviors.
Problem:
I was interested in the problem of creative dependency: how much of what we produce is genuinely our decision, and how much is predetermined by the logic of the tool itself? The problem was that many design outputs start to look similar because tools impose patterns, structures, and defaults that we often don’t question.
TL;DR
This thesis examines how default systems in design shape our creative decisions, often without us noticing.
Through experiments that break, repurpose, and reconfigure those boundaries, my work reimagines what intentional creation can look like.
Research Process
Interviewing amazing designers to shape how my thesis should go!
Key influences and process
I utilized ar.ena to collect default entities that are present in our web world (GUI, color, profile) and defined my key influences that held the same purpose as my thesis.
Part of thesis: user testing
Creating a default gesture kit that showcases common motions associated with GUI(graphical user interfaces, which are systems that let users interact with electronic devices through visual elements like icons, buttons, and menus instead of text-based commands) that allows the audience to feel the digital aspect in a physical form.
As part of my research phase, I led a collaborative Gesture Workshop that invited peers to generate marks without relying on typical design tools or structured prompts. Watching how others adapted while struggling, improvising, or inventing new gestures—provided critical feedback on how users respond when common defaults are removed (here, a laptop). These observations directly informed my thesis, reinforcing the need for design systems that make space for uncertainty, personal interpretation, and user-driven authorship.
Visual system
Developing a tool that defines the very base of my thesis: changing logo that creates diverse options and random outlooks
Thesis Book in detail
7.25" x 10.25"
260 pages
Thesis Projects
To explore my thesis question, I developed a series of small, fast experiments guided directly by my manifesto. Each piece acted as a provocation: a way to question assumptions, misuse tools, and foreground process over polish. Across these projects, I intentionally worked at multiple scales and mediums. Mini Circle used a simple paperweight as an optical tool, transforming a flat print into a dimensional encounter and revealing how even mundane objects can disrupt habitual ways of seeing. A micro-zine offered playful prompts that encouraged readers to shift their “micro-defaults”—everyday decisions we rarely interrogate. The UNMAKE posters pushed into new-ugly aesthetics as a way to resist inherited taste and reintroduce discomfort into visual decision-making.
I also explored how unconventional tools could reshape systems around design. Using a thermal printer, I created speculative packaging and receipt labels that imagined what it would look like if “unmaking” were a service: messy, procedural, and always revealing its own workings. A business card system used laser-cut stencils to create shifting views of the manifesto itself, reinforcing the idea that rules (even self-authored ones) should be continuously renegotiated.
Rather than producing one polished outcome, the work became a living set of inquiries about how design can stay curious, subversive, and self-critical.
1. **Reject Defaults**
Refuse the automatic choice.
2. **Misuse Tools**
Push tools beyond their recommended boundaries.
3.**Embrace Discomfort**
Value the difficulty, discomfort, and dissonance during creation.
4. **Document Failure**
Archive failed experiments and abandoned pathways.
5. **Break Your Own Rules**
Invent, then reinvent.
6. **Find New Voices**
Seek perspectives beyond established sources and canon.
7. **Make the Invisible Visible**
Reveal processes and inner workings.
9. **Practice Radical Playfulness**
Humor, irony, and absurdity.
10. **Collaborate Courageously**
Connect across disciplines, question hierarchies, allow unexpected partnerships.
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Follow these instructions as provocations
Constantly question, Continuously redefine.
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