Artist Spotlight: Natalie Stanziano

January 22, 2019 Kaitlin Gawkins

Graphic design and marketing come together in Junior, Natalie Stanziano’s work. Throughout the past three years, she has found an art form that she truly loves, discovered several ways to profit off of her work, and settled into a community of people she respects and admires.

In the past year or two Stanziano has gotten really interested in typography. “It is the study of type, fonts, form, and letter shapes,” Stanziano explained.

She also has recently started incorporating illustrations into her work.

Stanziano is in charge of all of the branding for The Galley. When she found out that she got the job on St. Patrick’s day last year, she was excited to get started on reworking the color palettes and revamping the typography for the brand.

She has also worked with the Marketing and Communications department to design the mailers that the University regularly sends out prospective students. Her favorite project she worked on were the graduation pamphlet covers. “All of my friends with siblings graduating were sending me pictures of their pamphlets and it was so rewarding to see the design finally done,” Stanziano said.

A third way that Stanziano’s work has impacted UD’s campus and culture is through her work with Redbubble. The popular website is where most of us get the stickers that one sees plastered on almost every square inch of every laptop on campus. Stanziano stumbled into making sticker designs on accident.

“It’s definitely not a job, I do it because I love it and I think it’s so cool to see people around campus with my stickers,” Stanziano said. She first got the idea to submit her work when she realized that the most popular designs were things she could create. It’s very possible that UD students have seen her first design, the “Obama mic drop” floating around campus.

Unlike some of her more traditional artistic peers, Stanziano is most comfortable using technology to create her artwork. She has found that she can manipulate her illustrations and typography more easily and overcome her fear of failure through the use of software.

Again, Stanziano takes a step away from the traditional when she is looking for her inspiration. “My graphic design class went on a trip to New York and it was amazing to go to the Met and see true artist’s work,” Stanziano stated.

She enjoys a good Van Gough or Monet as much as the next person, but has found that the lettering and designs she stumbles across while scrolling through Instagram and Pinterest are more useful to her.

The finer aspects of art are not lost on Stanziano. One of her first loves was film photography, which is a very traditional and tedious way to capture the world around you. While Stanziano has moved away from film, she still has a deep appreciation for the rawness of it. “The process of developing film is so magical.” Stanziano hopes that as her final year at UD approaches she will be able to find her way back to film photography.

While some may think that fine arts and graphic design are similar fields, Stanziano knows who she is and where her strengths lie. “I am not a fine artist,” Stanziano insisted. She may start a design on paper with calligraphy pens, ink, or watercolor, but she is always inclined to take her drawings to the next level with her IPad or MacBook.

Her marketing background comes into play when she discusses how the two fields can complement each other and result in a beautiful piece of work that “Pencil and paper are the root of everything, but learning how to add digital elements to traditional works to make them more appealing to the masses is really important.” It’s about giving everyday people something they want to look at.

The clean lines and perfect color saturation that she is able to achieve through the use of her devices plays into her simplistic style. Because she works for businesses and often produces work for clients, she sometimes has to create designs that don’t align with her personal style.

However, as she builds her portfolio and feels out who she is as an artist, Stanziano sees herself moving towards a simplistic style with a focus on nature.

Much like her style, the messages that her work portrays are also malleable. This is one aspect of her work that she prides herself on. “Artwork is whatever it is,” Stanziano stated. At least, that’s what she wants to get across with her body of work.

There are so many possibilities when it comes to art, so she doesn’t want to box herself in by only being open to a few styles or themes.

Although she has gone through her artistic journey with an open mind, she still struggles with her confidence sometimes. “One of my goals is to be more confident in my skills to portray a message through my designs,” Stanziano stated.

It is important for her to reach this goal because she firmly believes that artwork can often be more powerful that words, but it has to be able to be understood to really pack a punch. “Artwork is so easily spread through social media. It can make a huge difference and get people’s attention because everyone can talk but not everyone can do what artists do.”

When it comes down to it, Stanziano gives her friends a lot of credit for her success. Watching her peers grow and getting feedback from them pushes her to create even when she is overwhelmed. Stanziano states, “I really don’t know what I would do without my friends.”