Arianna Shekhani
Hi there, I’m Arianna (she/her)!
I am a senior pursuing a BFA in Communication Design with minors in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and Art History at Washington University in St. Louis, in the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts.
I’m fascinated by the intersection of research and design. A large part of my process involves diving into rabbit holes and uncovering insights and niches that inform the visual storytelling arc each project takes. I am interested in branding systems, research, typography, and art direction.
When I’m not working in an InDesign file, you can find me taking long walks in the park, obsessing over sunsets, and experimenting with nail art!
Resume
01 A Taste of Poison
01 A Taste of Poison
Duration: 12 weeks, SP 2026
Type: Book design + curation
Software & Materials: InDesign, Illustrator, Photoshop, prong-bound by hand
Advisor: Amy Auman
DESCRIPTION
My senior capstone project culminated in a cabinet of curated objects and corresponding book about the rise of forensic toxicology in 1920s New York City. As someone who intensely studied biology in high school and is currently pursuing an art history minor, this topic allowed me to combine my interests in science and history, allowing me to dive deep into research of such a specific time and place.
The main narrative component of my capstone manifested in a book with text from Deborah Blum’s book, The Poisoner’s Handbook. I edited down the text into 7 chapters in which each chapter discusses a specific poison and a murder case associated with it, with the overarching narrative outlining how forensic science earned its place in court as legitimate legal evidence.
View the full PDF here ->
NAVIGATION
The book and cabinet can be explored together through a system of symbols within the text that guides viewers. As you move through the book, small icons appear alongside specific phrases, signaling that a corresponding specimen exists within the cabinet. However, the cabinet is not reliant on the book. It can be explored independently for a high level understanding of the topic, allowing for investigation that is guided by the specimen tags.
PROCESS + BREAKDOWN
It took some iterating to get to the final form. A turning point for me, regarding the form that this project would take, was a visit I made to the Death by Natural Causes exhibit at the Houston Museum of Natural Science over the winter break. I was really drawn in by the interactive nature of this exhibit and realized that this close engagement on the audience's part was something that would be central to my project.
Initially, I envisioned seven separate booklets—one for each chapter—that would act as objects within the cabinet itself. During this part of the process, I was thinking a lot about how to sequence each book so they could be read in the correct order.
I made some rough, lofi cardboard prototypes. But, I ultimately came to the realization that by spreading the content across multiple books, the narrative arc of the text was getting lost. So, I pivoted, making the decision to make one big book with the cabinet + objects as something more supplementary to ensure that the narrative arc came through.
Throughout the whole process, I had been toggling between finding a balance between leaning into the dark, historical, somber tone that the topic of poisons and death evokes, as well as the scientific concept that highlights the scientific discovery being uncovered at the time as evidenced by these early spreads. I wanted to reference both a gothic visual language as well as scientific, lab manual visual language. My early iterations perhaps leaned too far into the gothic language, with the use of blackletter typography and dark colors, where color alone was doing most of the work to differentiate sections.
My main priority in this phase of the project was giving myself a list of design moves that corresponded with each section, allowing me to differentiate the three and find a balance between my two concepts.
To further ground the work in scientific authenticity, I met with a microbiology professor at WashU and visited her lab, gathering visual references and insights that informed my design decisions. This experience helped me refine the project and find stronger common ground between science and history.
Each object in the cabinet was selected to translate an abstract takeaway of each poison, related to its scientific use, into something tangible and recognizable.
Section 1, invisible poisons, relied on distortion, blurring, and fading into the background as evidenced by the section opener in which I used water to distort the type. The pull quotes in this section fade into the background, toying with that idea of opacity and invisibility.
Section 2, amassing poisons, uses repetition and stacking to show the build up of poisons in the body. I also referenced scientific processes, like gel electrophoresis that results in this stacking, repetitive pattern to make these design decisions.
And Section 3, masking poisons, I used layering and overlapping to conceal and reveal the same way these poisons did. The section opener was made by layering paper with sheets of acrylic to create that analog depth, evoking the stacking of scientific slides and petri dishes. Pull quotes similarly use overlapping outlined and filled text to allow forms to partially emerge.
The chapter openers are influenced by my initial chapter openers, but replacing the gothic typeface with a more modern one while keeping the composition the same to evoke that gothic tone. The use of vellum was my way of connecting back to the materiality of the cabinet. I also used microscope imagery behind the vellum sheets to evoke that scientific feel. The pockets on the left side of the spread contains ephemera that connects to the scientific context as well as a reference point to the cabinet. I also wanted this ephemera in the pockets to connect to a legal visual language to connect back to how forensic science was beginning to be used in court at the time, so I’ve included documents like autopsy reports and crime scene reports to reflect that visual language.
The secondary text from a toxicology textbook is set in a monospace typeface that references scientific notation and lab data. The image captions use a “figure 1, figure 2, etc.” convention that once again references scientific textbooks. And the marginalia highlights both the full name and chemical formula of each poison.
Overall, this capstone project has allowed me to realize that I really appreciate the intersection of research and design. I also found that one of the most rewarding parts of this capstone has been seeing how people interact with the book as well as the cabinet and designing for that experience and close engagement.