Harpur student spotlight: Ella Mualem

Ella Mualem believes that graphic design goes beyond just knowing the software — it’s a visual expression of ideas.

“Graphic design is not so much a focus on the software as it is with the concepts. … It’s like a digital translator,” Mualem said. “When you think of a translator, you think of taking someone’s words in one language and translating it into another, and graphic design is taking someone’s ideas and translating it into something visually understandable.”

Mualem is a Binghamton University senior working toward her bachelor’s degree in graphic design. Although she’s majoring in graphic design, her background in art initially stems from illustration, more specifically — life drawings.

“I like the movements and the curves of sketching figures,” Mualem said. “Everything about the human body is interesting for me.”

A native of Great Neck, N.Y., Mualem’s love for the arts began during her preschool and kindergarten years, when she was absorbed in her arts and crafts classes. With the support and encouragement of her parents, she continued her interest in art by taking classes outside of school.

Mualem said she always knew she wanted to continue art in college, though she was unsure if she wanted to pursue it as a career or as a pastime.

“When I was applying for school, I didn’t really know where I wanted to take art,” Mualem said. “I was thinking of applying to art school, but my parents suggested trying a liberal arts program, like Harpur College, where you try out different things, and Binghamton was a great option for that.”

During her first year of college, Mualem took a variety of art classes, though her first drawing class with Associate Professor Blazo Kovacevic solidified her choice in choosing a major in Binghamton University’s Department of Art and Design. In the class, Kovacevic’s medium of choice was drawing on a life-sized sheet of paper.

“He had a medium that was very strange — when I went to his drawing class I was thinking: ‘I’ve taken drawing before, like a million times,’” Mualem said. “His teaching method and the medium he used was very interesting, and just a completely different approach for what I was originally thinking.”

Diverging from her familiarity with basic illustration, Mualem decided to try something new by enrolling in a graphic design course with Lecturer Francis Chang. At first, she was worried that the class would be heavily focused toward the technical side of graphic design rather than the creative side.

“In my mind, graphic design was basically just working with computers,” Mualem said. “With graphic design classes here, it’s not so much a focus on the software, as it is drawing out the concepts before jumping to the computer.”

Last summer, Mualem completed her first graphic-design internship in Israel for a mobile technology company, Zemingo. The opportunity allowed her to understand the multiple job options in graphic design, while also exposing her to a workplace environment.

“The internship helped me understand the concept of a design workplace and made it less abstract for me,” Mualem said. “I also saw how I could apply what I learned in school and how that applies to the workplace itself.”

When she’s not spending hours on her computer perfecting her projects, she spends her time at the University Art Museum as a museum monitor. After working there for three years, Mualem is proud of what the museum offers the University community.

“The exhibits are not only professional artists who have their work up, but it’s also student-curated exhibits,” Mualem said. “People work hard on it, it’s there for the public. Even as I’m sitting there, I just look at all the art around me, and it just makes me feel good that it’s there.”

With art all around her, Mualem finds she learns lessons that carry over to the outside world. She credited her graphic design courses for allowing her to gain new perspectives that have not only influenced her art, but also her everyday life.

“Graphic design gave me the ability to think a different way about certain things,” Mualem said. “In the end, I’ve become a better problem-solver.”