Typography: ISTD Shaping the World
Brief
For the 2022 ISTD Student Assessment, I decided to work on their third brief: Shaping the world. In 2018 Pavilion Books published a book called A 100 Books That Changed The World by Scott Christianson and Colin Salter. For this brief one of the books in A 100 Books That Changed The World had to be chosen. The significance of the work had to be investigated as well as the influence it has had in shaping world views.
Design Strategy
For this brief I chose to investigate the Iliad. The Iliad is an epic poem by the ancient Greek poet Homer and it recounts the events of the last weeks of the Trojan War and the Greek siege of the city of Troy. I chose to investigate this work as I realised that many of the themes present in the Iliad are still relevant today, more than 2000 years later. This became my focus for this project. I researched the the different themes in the Iliad and how we perceive them today. After my initial research I decided to only focus on the themes of morality and mortality.
The publication pays homage not only to The Iliad itself, but also to human nature. This work targets the general public and aims to destroy myths and misconceptions of modern morality and mortality. The theme of morality is observed in The Iliad in the struggles of war and how the deeds of a warrior give meaning to his life. Since The Iliad is a poem about the Trojan War, it comes as no surprise that its second key theme is mortality. The theme of mortality is much more obvious as Homer constantly places the fleeting lives of humans in contrast with the immortality of the Greek gods. The death of the great and powerful Achilles is also a grave reminder of the immortality of humans.
The publication discusses how morality and mortality were viewed in the time that The Iliad was written and explores how our views have changed and also stayed the same. The visual style is inspired by the contrasting ideas of right versus wrong (morality) and life versus death (mortality). This idea came to life by using the contrasting colours red and green.
Project Deliverables
01 Journal and Research
02 Concept and Design Development
03 Strategy and Specifications
04 Final Outcome
Process Work and Journaling
Initial concepts ranged from an interactive experience to editorial designs focused on different parts of the Iliad.
To view the full process work for this project, please follow this link.
Moodboard
Specifications
Final Outcome
To view flat designs and final outcomes, please follow this link.
