Beyond the Surface: Transforming Typography into Embodied Experience

While typography is often associated with flat pages and screens, designers and artists have long explored how language and letterforms can become spatial, embodied, interactive, and performative experiences. Scholar Johanna Drucker argues that visual and typographic forms are not neutral containers for information, but actively shape interpretation and perception through...

June 8, 2026
Teaching & Student Work
3D Form, Analog and Digital Processes, Computational Design, Design Pedagogy, Dimensional Typography, Embodied Typography, Environmental Typography, Experiential Design, Experimental Typography, Foam Core Construction, Graphic Design Education, Immersive Media, Installation, Interactive Typography, Letterform Construction, Materiality, Movement and Perception, Physical and Digital Making, Rule-Based Design, Spatial Design, Spatial Typography, Time-Based Media, Typography and Space, Typography Installation, Visual Communication

Visualizing Our Story: An Interactive Exhibition of LGBTQ Oral Histories

This October, Our Story opened at Emerge Gallery as a regional exhibition featuring 24 oral history interviews collected over the past year and a half. The exhibition centers LGBTQ voices from Eastern North Carolina and aims to expand how regional histories are documented, shared, and experienced. Our Story project began...

November 8, 2025
Interactive-Immersive Experiences, Research
archives, digital storytelling, Eastern North Carolina, exhibition design, interactive media, LGBTQ, oral history

Mapping Communication Design Research Trends Through Data Visualization

This project analyzes keywords from Design Incubation’s colloquium research archive to track trends in communication design research over the past decade. Since 2014, Design Incubation has hosted public colloquia where academics and practitioners share and discuss research and creative practice. The archive offers a snapshot of communication design research from...

June 16, 2025
Interactive-Immersive Experiences, Research
communication design, communication design research, data sets, data visualization, keywords

Gathering LGBTQ Oral Histories of Eastern North Carolina: An Open Call to Share Stories and Shape History

The LGBTQ Our Story project began in 2022 as an investigation into the university and community archives to discover an important and relevant historical narrative from our community,...

May 31, 2025
Community-based Practices, Research
archival project, archives, community engagement, Eastern North Carolina, LGBTQ, oral history, special collections, storytelling

Creating mixed realities and designing for the “physdigital” experience in graphic design

Graphic designers work with materials, tools, and systems in all kinds of ways. Being hands-on with both analog and digital tools helps students expand how they think about design and what’s possible in their practice. This project was co-taught across two senior-level studios in a cross-classroom collaboration. My colleague, Megan...

August 23, 2024
Interactive-Immersive Experiences, Research, Teaching & Student Work

Now & Next Exhibition showcases typographic futures with augmented reality (AR) and immersive, interactive experiences

The Now & Next project asks students to consider current and emerging themes in typography to design a poster that communicates their perspective on where type is now and where it is headed next. Students examine intersecting issues such as technology, accessibility, inclusion, representation, and style to frame their perspectives...

March 6, 2024
Interactive-Immersive Experiences, Teaching & Student Work
2D type, 3D type, AR, augemented reality, blended experience, digital type, East Carolina University, graphic design, immersive experiences, student work, typography

Cat Normoyle