Victoria Nichols

Out of Sight Out of Mind is an interactive data visualization installation created to educate and promote harm reduction and safe use practices as a reaction to the Fentanyl epidemic. There are multiple safe use and harm reduction practices interwoven throughout the piece. The data for the piece was gathered from a harm reduction site where people can send their drugs in to be tested. The interactive portion of the piece mimics actual Fentanyl testing strips and there is a QR code embedded into the piece that takes the viewer to a site where they can purchase their own Fentanyl test strips.  

Editson is a typeface based on a sample of Thomas Edison’s handwriting. The same of this handwriting was found on an object in The archive of The Henry Ford. The specimen I chose to base my typeface on is something that I saw towards the end of a private tour. I knew from the beginning that I wanted to created a typeface based something hand painted or hand written. I really thought it was going to be based in hand-painting because sign-writing is what I am most drawn to in my personal work, however once I spotted the logotype on an old kinetoscope, I knew that was what I was going to use for the inspiration for my typeface. Ultimately the S in this specimen is what really sold me, it\'s so playful. That S is what was used for the basis of all my letterforms, I iterated tons of letterforms in the developmental stage of this typeface. The handwritten aspect of it gave me the ability to experiment with the letterforms and because of this it gave me the opportunity to explore multiple ways of depicting certain letterforms. At some point I was became a little lost in my iterative process trying to emulate the feel of a handwritten type, especially the beautiful swoosh in the T in the original specimen,  so the loop from the E really helped ground me in my decisions on how unify my typeface, particularly in relation to the upper case set of my letterforms.

Pollinate Detroit is a speculative design project created to promote the protection of pollinators in urban environments and help solve the problem of declining pollinator populations. Together with Deonna Camastra, Jordan Mickey, and Yashi Sarsambi, we explored landmarks and objects that are recognizable to Detroit to envision something that could be repurposed to support pollinators in some way. Ultimately we chose to create “vehicles of pollination” these vehicles are meant to aid pollinators not to replace them. We then designed a system around these vehicles for people to “call” them as they would an Uber or a Lyft.  

FDA Case Files Great Michigan Pizza Funeral is a riso printed zine based on an actual event that took place in Michigan during the 1970s. The zine follows an fictional case file compiled by the FDA in response to contaminated mushrooms that resulted in an actual funeral held for pizzas that we impacted by the infected mushrooms. The zine includes playful inserts including an evidence bag of dried mushrooms and an envelop sent by the owner of the pizza company that held the funeral.