Lauren Blood: Senior Exhibition 2025

Lauren Blood

This is one in a series of online interviews with MIAD seniors, who share their thoughts about their 2025 Senior Exhibition project and their MIAD education.

Lauren Blood ’25 (Communication Design; Business minor through Marquette), “Raða.” Lauren was a Finalist at the recent 2025 United Adworkers Showcase Awards and is from Kansas City, Kansas.

What is your “elevator pitch” for your senior exhibition project?

Raða is an interactive application that redefines reading as a solitary activity through guided reading strategies, annotation capabilities and group discussion spaces where users can connect and grow their interest and knowledge of reading together. At its core, reading and writing have been our way as a human race to confide in and connect with one another since the dawn of time, and it will continue to be our greatest asset in reflection and connection so long as we evolve [its] form and function … to align with the current times.

What has the senior exhibition experience been like for you?

The senior exhibition experience for me has been focused on one goal, exploration. I wanted this final project to represent a culmination of both the skills I have honed while at MIAD and new skills that I took to developing during the course of this exhibition to strengthen my creative capabilities and confidence. The process has been equally if not more important to me than the final product; in my mind, that time to sit with your work and enjoy its growth from start to finish is an often-overlooked benefit of creative education that is not often allotted in the professional design world.

What will you take away from this project as you transition into the professional world?

I will bring with me the curiosity and care that I put into Raða and dedicate myself to continue incorporating the intangible into each professional creative endeavor. The professional world needs more designers who understand and respect the human element of what they do with their work and who seek to amplify it any way they can.

Anything else you’d like to share about yourself or MIAD?

My time at MIAD has been full of unexpected surprises. I was accepted with the MIAD Presidential Merit Scholarship for a portfolio full of fine art figure drawings and oil paintings but pivoted to entering the Communication Design major. I had never used a computer to try and create art or design…, so the learning curve was steep…. But after a year and a half or so, in my junior year, I landed an internship at a branding agency, where for the duration of my senior year I have been able to work alongside extremely talented individuals for some very high-profile clients.… Moving away from home, enrolling in MIAD and beginning to form my new creative life in the city of Milwaukee has proven to be wonderfully challenging and deeply enriching at every turn.

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