Enrichment Scholarship Recipient
Maria Mercedes Piva – San Jose State University

Designer’s Statement

Design is an act of creation and communication which reconciles the rational and emotional. Designers are often asked to make the complex and confusing instinctual and obvious. We are asked to make the intangible concrete. This requires a level of thought and consideration, and even during those times of intuitive ideation and execution, to design means to recognize that spontaneous creation as an effective solution to the task.

It is this type of critical thinking that allows designers to anticipate and solve problems, and this is why I love design. When I first began my education, I was inspired by the potential it has to make the planet we live on a better place. We live in a cacophonous world of problems, and through design, we can begin to harmonize the discordant themes.

This can easily go the other way, and what can be used as a tool for clarity and prosperity can become a tool for misdirection and stagnation. As cliché as it may sound, we all need to use our powers for good. I’m not sure how my design career will unfold, but I aim to produce ethical work that will hopefully leave the world a little better than I found it.