Time is Money
Time is Money: Connecting Athens to Atlanta on Rail is my senior capstone project, focusing on using design to solve Athens’ inconvenient transportation to & from Atlanta, and how more convenient forms of transportation (like rail lines) can actually better one’s quality of life. Focusing the majority of my semester on process and research, this project stands as a strong insight into my design workflow & process.
Adobe Ilustrator, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe InDesign
Prompt
Graphic design is not only about producing artifacts: it is about shaping meaning, translating information, and influencing understanding and behavior. Design can play a critical role in addressing social, cultural, environmental, and institutional issues, and designers may take on different roles depending on context, audience, and intent: informing, persuading, organizing, advocating, facilitating access, or enabling collaboration. As you begin your Capstone project, you are asked to consider what role you are taking on as a designer and what kind of impact your work aims to have. This framing will help you define a focused and meaningful problem while still allowing room for ambition, experimentation, and authorship.
TOPIC: Hyperlocal Problems or Topics
Process
I began the semester by wanting to design & brand a rail line that would begin in Athens and end in Atlanta. After scratching the surface of research, I quickly learned that my desire for a passenger rail wasn’t foreign. In fact, legislation was pushed for rails heavily during the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, and also in the early 2000’s under a project referred to as the “Brain Train.” I knew the most effective design project wouldn’t be simply branding a train–that would only attract and appeal the commonfolk who already support the notion. Instead, I shifted my approach toward campaign to inspire legislature to build a train.
Committed to campaign work, I then came to another dilemma: what am I campaigning for? I didn’t need to campaign for a train to ultimately end with a train. The root of the issue is convenience.
I learned about a group of Athens natives who are fighting to preserve the rails we already have, with hopes of it connecting to a stop in Athens for the Southeast Corridor High Speed Rail, which begins in Charlotte and ends in Atlanta.
Read more below!
Proposed Rail
Log into Figma to explore an interactive map demonstrating the proposed rail
