Split Ends

JAN 2023 - MAY 2023 ︎ Senior Thesis
[Skills] Art Direction, Editorial Publication, Social Experiment, Digital Photography, Printmaking
[Tools] Indesign, Illustrator, Photoshop, Risograph

Split Ends occur when the protective outer layer of the hair cuticle is damaged, leaving the inner core of the hair more vulnerable to damage. The end of the hair strand will split into two or multiple ends, and the overall head of hair becomes disconnected. After dying and changing my hairstyle during my college years in an attempt to explore my self-expression, I had to learn about different products, routines, and methods to treat my split ends. This process has allowed me to experience a sign to repair and renew oneself.

As my senior thesis, I questioned how design has similarly allowed me to experience a sense of renewal, and I learned that it was in the way I viewed different methods of thinking. I always considered myself a creative thinker, however approaching my projects with detailed research and carefully crafted notes and sketches, I learned that design also brings out the logical side in me. It felt like I grew split ends between creative and logical thinking.

I want to push hair as a language, medium, and viewpoint to contextualize the tension and harmony between creative and logical thinking. Through generating tools, forms, and narratives around hair, I invite and challenge you to deconstruct and reconstruct the conventional methods of thinking.

Methodology Map
In preparation for Senior thesis, we were asked to design a methodology map. I wanted to map the relationship between me, my audience, my design, and my hair. The themes position themselves along the curve of each connection.

Are My Roots Showing?

Are My Roots Showing? documents nine people on their own relationship with hair with the intention of studying and revealing how people creatively and logically think. I collected and recorded this data from people I grew up knowing to people I met just a few weeks ago. Each conversation ranged from twenty to ninety minutes.

Hairoglyphs

Hairoglyphs are a set of cards studying the thought processes behind people’s perception of their hair in a negative and positive connotation. The goal of this project is to collect data that I could translate into an output, and in turn continue to generate more forms. The data I collected are the constraints of the project, I am the filter for the output, and further data I collect resets the cycle. Therefore, the back side of the cards show madlibs for any viewer to interact with based on how they perceive these hairoglyphs.

Split Ends Thesis Book

When building my visual system for “Split Ends,” I wanted to initally recontextualize a venn diagram. I imagined two ellipses overlapping as a way to visualize two entities merging, as if it were two heads sharing one mind. Then, I learned about the chaos theory, a mathematic theory similar to the butterfly effect. The behavior of the chaos theory graph is highly sensitive to slight changes in conditions. Therefore, small alterations cause great consequences. The principles of chaos theory can apply to the behavior of hair, in that hair is a material sensitive to initial conditions like the direction of growth, moisture content of hair, or shape of the hair follicle.

Chaos theory and venn diagram both require a more holistic and interconnective approach by emphasizing the importance of overlapping regions. In a venn diagram, this overlap signifies the commonalities between separate ideas, while in chaos theory, this overlap indicates the sensitivity of a system to to small changes in initial conditions. These two diagrams are also the result of both analyzing the behavior of complex systems and exploring new possibilities and solutions. With logic and creativity working in harmony, I wanted to design a form inspired by both chaos theory and venn diagrams.