For Stefan Sagmeister’s “Touch Someone’s Heart” class first year MFA Design students created a variety of projects. Over the next few days we will survey some of them.

Sokai Yoon (Thai) writes:

“My first project was a two-week excursion of finding a very good friend of mine whom I lost contact with once he moved to New York before I did. He is a Cambodian artist (fashion photographer) whom I inspired to pursue the arts regardless of the flak and insults we’ve received from our Cambodian community in Atlanta. After a fateful meet with his best friend who also moved to New York, I was able to get in touch with him and meet up for lunch. He has been doing very well for himself, working for companies such as Oak NYC, AR New York, InStyle, and HarpersBazaar. He said without my encouragement and motivation, he wouldn’t have been in a passionate and fun place. Touched me dearly. During the mix he also told me that his workflow has gone so digital that he does not have the time to ideate or produce work of his own and feels as if his creativity is flatlining. However, one of his favorite cartoon shows, Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends, have been his escape from his creative block.”

He adds . . .

“I’ve decided to repackage a Diana F+ that I’ve received as a gift but have never opened. I felt truly in my heart that this would help him get out of his funk (and it did!) and repackage it to my own version of Foster’s Home. Not only that I threw in a few boxes of film too to get him started. He was truly touched and re-inspired to produce his own work and to keep in touch more often so that together we can expand, build, and inspire more artists from the Cambodian community to move to New York or other arts/design hubs and rejuvenate a culture that died with the Khmer Rouge regime.”