IA   ISHRAQ ASHTARIAN
Visual Designer User Experience Designer Interaction Designer  
A designer passionate about tackling complex challenges through innovative thinking, embracing the problem itself as the key to finding the right solution.

What Skills I Showcase Here?
Creative Talents / Hands-on Approach from Concepts Through Iterative Design / Exploring the Emerging World of AI and its Potential Future/ UX Instincs / Interaction Design / Tackling Complex Challenges Using Visuals / Animation / Innovative Thinking / Passion for Technology, Art, and Culture. 


Projects
1.  HeartStone
2. Exert Platforms
3. Dissolution: Entwined Realities
4. Q-Uniform
5. Raccoonada


Tools
Sketch, Adobe Creative Suite, Figma, Blender 3D, Premiere Pro

About
Inspirations


 
Project Six

California Wildfire: A Visual Language for Environmental Storytelling


Project
Printmaking

Role
Printmaker, Visual Designer

Description
Wildfire is a series of hand-crafted print works developed into a visual storytelling system addressing the ecological impact of wildfires. Using various printmaking techniques, such as relief printing, etching, or screen printing, I have created prints that capture the essence and intensity of wildfires. The series was later adapted into a digital campaign prototype, and a series of motion-driven social posts.
Overview

This project explores how analog processes like relief, etching, and monoprint can serve as powerful tools for narrative expression, systematized into a series of artworks that could be translated into a larger campaign or awareness initiative.




Concept Development

Emotional Starting Point
The emotional gravity of the California wildfires — fear, awe, loss — served as my conceptual entry point. I aimed to visually communicate this psychological weight through expressive textures, tonal extremes, and abstraction.

Expressive Potential of Printmaking
Inspired by the physicality and unpredictability of printmaking, I used each technique not just for form but as metaphor— carving as destruction, pressing as pressure, ink as smoke.

Influence & Dialogue
Drawing inspiration from Jasper Johns and my own previous abstract work, I created a dialogue between recognizable motifs (e.g., flames, trees, smoke) and altered, abstracted imagery — echoing the duality of fire as both beautiful and devastating.






Visual Language System

Repetition as Narrative
My longstanding interest in repetitive visual forms served as a structural device throughout this project — reflecting the cyclical nature of wildfires, both in ecosystem and media coverage.

Texture & Tone
The strong contrasts, layered textures, and raw edges evoke a visceral visual language. Each technique offered its own voice — relief prints for stark destruction, etchings for detail and decay, monoprints for unpredictability.

“Happy Accidents”
In embracing technical imperfections — smudges, ink spills, misregistrations — I mirrored the uncontrollable force of fire, allowing process to shape outcome.