Katryna Isabelle Dionisio
Pronouns: she/her
Major: Design
kdionisio.com
Being a first-generation Filipino-American graphic designer from Southern California, I have found my love and passion for merging cultural heritage, personal stories, and art. Design has allowed me to embrace and move towards technological innovation in the 21st century while also breaking boundaries and challenging tradition. I not only strive to create beautiful, unique designs but also start conversations about stigmatized topics with my audience. Growing up, I was always interested in the arts, fashion, and community service. I believe in the capacity of design to create space for those marginalized by Eurocentric ideas of American society including immigrant cultures to those neurodivergent. I accomplish this through poster designs, media graphics, publication design, web design, and beauty and fashion brand internships. My goal as a graphic designer is to create spaces for people who look like me, a Filipino-American, in the design and fashion world. My biggest inspirations are the women in my family and all of those who have paved the way for us.
Filipino Threads: A piece of my culture worth preserving
Filipino Threads: A piece of my culture worth preserving explores the intersection of fashion and identity through several facets. The main aspect is the debut of MISS Magazine. MISS Magazine brings together interviews of Filipino fashion designers and creatives, a brief history of native materials that make Filipino fashion Filipino, and advertisements featuring Filipino small business owners; offering a space to highlight Filipino work. MISS features stories reflecting on the diaspora, self-doubt, resistance, and celebration.
The final aspect of Filipino Threads explores my love for fashion design. Through the collaboration with my very own mother, Ma Cecilia Dionisio, I designed my first fashion line with thrifted clothes and transformed them to become Filipino-American inspired. This thesis is both personal and political; it serves as a response to the lack of representation I witnessed growing up, and a celebration of the creative work within my culture. It is a foundation for the work I hope to continue in the future: design that tells a story, creating space for the marginalized, and honoring where I come from.
WET PAINT
USFCA Design & Fine Arts
Class of 2025
Senior Projects