The Book

Content

The book will essentially deal with the feelings of homesickness, dislocation and the overall notion of nostalgia. The approach followed is a more general one compared to the previous concepts of the research. It will be far from a personalised approach of geography, culture, history, locations and people.

Media

In order to keep it generalised, the use of photography will be limited (if any) and treated in such a way as to be have give emphasis on objects. The majority of the content will be based on typography, with some use of illustration and possibly with the addition of textures where that is useful to the design.

The typography can play three different roles in the overall design:-
a. It can co-exist with it in a balanced manner, providing a clear visual and legible message.
b. It can be the main part of the design used as decorative text, that incorporates a playful/hidden message.
c. It could be the whole of the design, by having an arrangement of letters -functioning predominantly as shapes-, while the feeling is conveyed by the use -or not- of colours.

Product

The main product will be the book, with some complimentary, secondary, screen prints of selected spreads. Another venue this concept could be taken to is animation, as kinetic typography is an area that I would like to tap into.

Tention text

This is more of a placeholder/reminder as the image here does not have the "physics" that I would like it to. I need to find some more visual references on the subject.

Font Bender

It has a kind of "fridge magnetic poetry" feeling to it and at the same time a kind of handmade childlike warmth.


One of the drafts for this page was with a cleaner font, still handwritten but not as "pumped" up.



Another handmade font, trying to emulate a phone cord.

Font Test Run

Forming words with those crude glyphs almost makes it feel like a font. I am a still bit uncertain as to how close it is to what I had in mind.



Another way to use typefaces is to make them fight each other. Too bad arial never dies.
http://www.mimeartist.com/helvetica/

Fluffy Font

A font devised fairly quickly to cover the needs for the first couple of spreads of the second chapter, the one after the introduction. It conveys the softness and curliness that I would like it to have, though some characters might need to be photoshoped. Another method would be to hand-write all characters to avoid any "standardisation".

Introduction

Some of the ideas that the book IS NOT about, playfully defined in the introduction. A recurring theme an all pictures is that an element of them has some "momentum", an element that will be used as a link to follow through to Chapter I.

Missing

The spinal concept of the research seems to be focused on the concept of missing (places, people, feelings). Essentialy it is an expression of homesickness and dislocation, generalised and focused to the emotional outcome of HOW we feel, rather than what causes it.

The attention is given to the moon, rather than the finger pointing at it.

I heart (detail)

In these pages, type becomes the layout as it is the only element present in a close-ups from various angles.

Manchester Airport

Typographic adverts for various offers.

The destination for each of the offers is declared in the design from the path that the type follows and the colour/tonal separation that is assigned to it. The product "Manchester Airport" clearly occupies the main spot and is highlighted in all three designs, while no sacrifices for legibility have been made in the secondary element, the destinations.

Down to basics

There are many ways to look at things. War images may not be as shocking (sadly enough) as they were before the Gulf War, the first full-scale televised war. Our
mediated eyes have become over-saturated with these images and maybe they don't get
analysed just looked at, or even ignored.

The child-like approach of the second video cries for a return to innocence and re-examination of values and "differences". It just delivers a more concrete message
that is easier to decipher, even from a 5 year old.

Ed Ruscha

Ed Ruscha is an artist that started in the 60s, a contemporary of Warhol and Lichtenstein. Many of his creations were based on typography and depiction/definition of words. In his drawings, prints, and paintings throughout the 1970s, Ruscha experimented with a range of materials including gunpowder, blood, fruit and vegetable juices, axle grease, and grass stains.

Joan Miró

Visual annotations of poems by Juan Miro, another prominent member of the Surrealist movement. His style is quite primitive as he delivers raw emotions in shapes and colours, revealing a subconscious dream world .

René Magritte

René Magritte was born on November 21, 1898, in the town of Lessines, Belgium. He was a Surrealist who used out of place and out of proportion imagery to provoke thought. A consummate technician, his work frequently displays a juxtaposition of ordinary objects in an unusual context, giving new meanings to familiar things.