Surface Sing

The obscurity of the term "surface design" offers one room to range. Through a playful process—creating a situation where intuition and iteration can happen in pattern and mixed media illustration—traditional drawing techniques and digital manipulation are combined. Pattern created through combining and recombining elements: outcomes include pattern as narrative, pattern as dimensional environment, pattern as collaborative process through engaging others. Explore the historical context, the definition, and inadequacies of surface design.

Jax Brill is a Cambridge-based illustrative designer who recently received her Master of Graphic Design degree from the Vermont College of Fine Art. Formerly an art director at a Boston-based publishing company, she is currently focused on the practice of surface design. After defining a goal to use pattern in unusual and unexpected ways, she has experimented with pattern as music, pattern as social commentary, and pattern components recombined to create narrative illustration. She has recently exhibited her work Alien Nation in a group show at the Wedeman Gallery at Lasell University, Newton, MA.