Mollybeth Ferari

I am inquisitive about human interaction and the consciousness behind why people are the way they are. These are concepts I have mused on for much of my life. Different experiences in life had led me to begin to take a closer look into myself. On the voyage into myself, I had a realization that I was built of complexities, some seemingly nominal, all of which had a profound impact on myself in the present. Seeing this in myself made me think about the complexities that lie beneath the surface of other people; things I could never understand. My curiosity grew.

I guess it’s a curiosity into where human traits come from on an individual scale. Everyone has a past and a story that has shaped them and evolved them into who they are now and will become in the future. I often wonder why people act in a certain manner, whether it be negative, positive or indifferent. How can I be sensitive to all individuals without judgment and just really be able to see them with an unbiased eye? Thinking about how many people there are and how small that makes me, and knowing that everyone has their own story, their own perspective, and their own ideas about the world. I wonder how I can help those who suffer from things I will never understand. How I can capture the unspoken knowledge that exists within these completely individual tales of life and perspective. What can I learn from hearing a worldly perspective of someone who is illiterate, homeless, or completely broken; what can I learn from the perspective of someone on the other end of the spectrum. What opportunity am I missing every single day when I walk past the same person each morning on my way out the door, never thinking twice about starting up a conversation. I think people try so hard to learn in ways that seem appropriate because they have become so standard throughout time. But who decided that this is the way we learn, communicate and interact? Thinking about communication I wonder, how powerful are my words to others and how powerful can a symbol for a thought or feeling really be? Words are symbols really, they are a means of communicating ideas, but what one word means to someone may have a different thought or emotion behind it to someone else. I am consumed by that feeling you get when such a profound moment occurs that there are no words that could even begin to describe it. What is that experience like for others? What makes it so intense, almost dreamlike. How can I conjure that feeling in others through design?

I think about these things while consumed in my design process. As a designer, I try to use these concepts to create a user experience that can be inventive and different for each individual. I tend to think in an abstract manner and I bring abstraction into my concepts and my designs. I do this because it grants me the opportunity to allow each person to embrace their unconscious mind without being told the intention of the space. My concepts seem to always have a poetic and metaphorical aspect that inspire my design process.