During this semester of Graphic Design, the students we’re prompted in different ways to find their own narrative within a given assignment or context. First through the lens of Italo Calvino’s ‘Invisible Cities’, where each student was assigned to one of the book’s eccentric cities and tasked to photograph this imaginary city in their own town. Then, in a four page lay-out, the students were challenged to tell the story of the city in image and text, which finally resulted in a collective zine visualising new ‘Invisible Cities’.
The second assignment asked the students to use an existing book (chosen from their own library) as a departure point for a new research. This research then led them to make an entirely new publication, that in some way or form serves a personal response to the original title. Here, students were taught how to think editorially and how to apply frameworks through design to shape their stories and research into a resonate and compelling narrative. Materiality of the physical book aswell as content development according to personal interest and desire were of paramount importance in this segment of the course.
- Yin Yin Wong
Chen Zhang
The Missed Body, 2021, Stitch bound book, 34 pages
How we see suggested how we know. Andrew Causey’s book Drawn to Seeing showcased ideas of drawing and seeing with exercises. This booklet followed several exercises, took the idea that seeing things as they are from Causey, and looked back at the body.
It is more usual to use metaphors to describe the body “looks like” something else, rather than seeing itself. This booklet attempts to get away from the additional interpretation and see the body as – in Causey’s instruction – essential sketch lines interacting. The body is a being as it is.
Felix Roos
Just Create, 2021, Saddle Stitched Paperback, 32 pages
Just Create is a visual representation of the artistic process. It details the story of an artist encountering different emotions and themes throughout their creative journey.
The booklet was inspired by Patti Smith’s memoir Just Kids written in 2010. It taught me to make use of everything I had at hand, to do instead of doubt, to enjoy the process and most importantly: trust in my own expression.
I challenged myself to make 3 pieces of art each week for 5 weeks. The resulting collages are combined with Patti’s poetic descriptions to create a new visual poem on each page.
Hedda Peters
a call to not stop dreaming, 2021, 46 pages, stitched
What wishes do you have for the future of the world?
What is it that you can’t stop dreaming about?
I asked people who are dear to me what wishes they have for the future, what change they would like to see in the world.
This booklet is inspired by the poetry within teaching my mother how to give birth by Warsan Shire, a book about gender, oppression, migration, trauma – all the substantial issues that I care about deeply.
This is a small collection of people’s dreams, and some of my own.
I sincerely hope you enjoy it and become inspired.
Jana Dabelstein
The Unfoldings of a Tsunami, 2021, 18 pages, Pamphlet stich
The Unfoldings of a Tsunami is a homage to Frank Schätzing’s The Swarm. It is a handbook for international politics. It explains international political issues by looking at different industries and highlights contemporary issues. This is illustrated with the visualization of a tsunami – which famously appears in The Swarm. Like raindrops, political movements start to form the waves that move industries. A tsunami being a harbour wave, this booklet comes to end with the visual of a brick wall, representing a harbour wall, to offer a solution-oriented conclusion. The paper is recycled, to align with the political message of the book. The binding is threated and glued.
Merel van Altena
my mom used to say..., square folded book, 24 pages
The core of this project is the meditation book by Haemin Sunim my mom gifted me. The fact that my mother gifted me this reveals something about myself, her and our relationship. The book consists of collections of manifestation quotes and essays. The research of my book my mom used to say…consisted of interviewing young adults, and posing the question “what quote of your mother’s do you still remember?” I illustrated the quotes using child-like imagery to create a pocket-size children’s book. The book shares sweet moments between mother and child, and evokes a feeling of familiarity and sentimentality.
Simone Lammertink
When the Princess is not in the Castle, 2021, Ringband bound book, 26 pages
Telling stories is, as I see it, one of the fundamentals of being human. Yet, one of the structures that serves of the basis for a lot of these stories only represents half of humanity: the hero’s journey. Campbell famously said: “A woman does not need to make the journey, she is what the hero will arrive at”. To oppose this view, this book serves as a possible reimagining of the hero’s journey from the female experience, and why we should keep exploring proper narrative grammar to tell stories as lived by women.
Mees Van Rhijn
Over verwondering, 2021, kettle stitch section binding, 72 pages
Some things seem quite ordinary at first, yet the line between the mundane and the marvellous is thin. The sun rises every day without asking anything in return; the greenness of grass and how when the wind moves across, it starts to ripple, whisper; the never-ending dance of light and shadow, following one another closely, never out of sight.
These are some of the wonders that this book pays tribute to. It collects experimentations of different media, like handsketches, watercolours, linocuts, cyanotype and silkscreening. Along with it are extracts from books and poems on those recurring themes of the World.
Sitora Sayed
Beauty of ‘deviation’, 2021, Stapled Booklet, 8 pages
Wanting to learn how to draw had led me to the book ‘how to draw the head and hands’ by Andrew Loomis. I owe much of what I know about facial anatomy to this book, but spending so much time practicing and studying faces made me wonder, ‘why is there a standard if no one fits it?’. No two faces are the same, nor are they drawn the same way. Yet we have, whether it is from culture of science, an image of what we think is what faces should look like. With this booklet I hope to show that we all deviate from the prototype, and that it’s totally OK.
Jihae Cha
O, 2021, Saddle stitch bound book, 13 pages
Not only do others invade my personal space, but I as well invade others’ personal space. Elevator by Irma Boom inspired me to go deeper into personal space. Closed space like an elevator forces one to break into a stranger’s invisible shield.
Believing that some amount of space is essential, I question what a good amount of space is between me and others. The book expresses what space means to me and also functions as a measurement of my personal space, depending on the relationship.
Emma Regeni
Something To Do, 2021, Japanese binding, 44 pages
To collect fragile materials and conserve them between words. This booklet is the result of a personal and free interpretation of Tim Ingold’s Being Alive: Essays on Movement, Knowledge and Description. It all started when the maker of the booklet, at age six or seven, got her hands on a rim of ruvid paper interspersed with pressed flowers.
Why do we do what we do? Because it’s something to do.
