Revolutionizing
Care through New
Design Dialogues by David Sokol
A
s an undergraduate deciding between majors in
found she still wanted to explore the relationship between
Essen, Germany, Hanna de Vries realized she could
psychology and design, and in even greater depth. While
pursue communication design without sacrificing her
examining her postgraduate options, she discovered the
passion for exploring the human mind. In creating projects
MFA Transdisciplinary Design program at Parsons. The
like a typeface embedded with pronunciation cues for deaf
examination of complex systemic challenges and embrace
readers and trauma education materials for refugees that
of intense collaboration in “the program allowed me to
replace written language with images, de Vries exercised her
do exactly what I wanted, which was to design across
compassion for and interest in people. “To design for people,
psychology and other disciplines for social impact,” she
it’s crucial to understand why they behave the way they do,”
says. De Vries began the two-year MFA in fall 2018, building
says de Vries of her college experience.
bridges between design and her other fields of interest
After moving to New York for an internship, de Vries
from day one. 15
