Selected Spreads
Layout Design
Thread Magazine at Cornell University

Thread Magazine, selected spreads.
Layout Design.
Thread Magazine / Director of Design.
Fall 2024, Spring 2025, Fall 2025.

Adobe InDesign, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe LightRoom.

I’ve served as the design director for Thread Magazine at Cornell University since the 2024 fall semester, being chiefly responsible for selecting photography, formatting written work, and the final layout of the magazine including masthead and print logistics.

I create all layouts in Adobe InDesign, drawing from graphic direction set by the issue’s creative director. For recent issues (shown), I have used Swiss design principles and grid alignment through the entire issue.
Along with designing layouts for my designated shoot (1 of 5-7 shoots per issue) each issue, I ensure that the entire magazine follows the same design logic and small details like page numbers, headers, footers, and margins are consistent through the entire 70-100 page issue.

A Contemplation on Form
Graphic & Publication Design
DEA 1101 Fall 2024

Designed in Adobe InDesign; hand-painted and hand-lettered with acrylic paint on archival museum board, 11x14”.

Measured layout.

Design mock-up on Adobe InDesign.

Alternative design.

Alternative design.

A Contemplation on Form
Graphic & Publication Design.
DEA 1101 / Professor Jack Elliott.
Fall 2024.

A Contemplation on Form: Eileen Gray, Mother of Modernism is a book cover design created as a study in translating a designer's philosophy into graphic form.
Eileen Gray, an Irish architect and furniture designer who pioneered modernism alongside Le Corbusier but went largely unrecognized until the final years of her life, served as both subject and design inspiration.
Every element of the layout is intentional: the off-white covers reflect the warmth Gray brought to modernism that her contemporaries lacked; all type is set in Futura, a sans-serif whose geometry and era mirror Gray's own evolution as a designer; and a custom symbol on the front cover synthesizes the forms of her Bibendum chair and E1027 coffee table. The back cover is a grid of 94 squares, with one filled, representing the 94 years Gray went without recognition, with the single filled square positioned at the coordinates of her birthday as a quiet tribute to her.

The title is a rebuttal: where Corbusier is called the "father of modernism," this cover names Gray as its mother.

LILIAN CAO

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