03 Typography: The Jungle Book
ISTD - International Society of Typographic Designers
2023 Student Brief
Brief Summary
The ISTD Student Assessment scheme operates as an annual review to reflect the current best practices in both design education and industry. As part of the ISTD 2023 Student Assessment Scheme, this project required the selection and execution of one of the five ISTD-issued student briefs. These briefs included: (1) Open | Close, (2) How Sustainable is it?, (3) Mapping the World, (4) The Body Politic, and (5) The Spaces Between. The final execution needed to incorporate a strong emphasis on research, concept development, strategy and the integration of typography into design.
The chosen brief for this particular project was brief one: Open | Close. This brief asked us to consider how typography and format, alongside paper stock and book architecture, could amplify our engagement with prose and narrative. We were invited to choose a book (work of fiction, novel, biography) that is out of copyright. By using the opening and closing chapters of our chosen book we were required to create a radical re-imagining of the content through typography. Our interpretation of the content needed to be underpinned through research on the author, the period the book was written in, the genre, critical commentary about the book, its impact, and its relevance to a current readership. An emphasis on the shift in tone or atmosphere from the opening to the closing pages through type, composition and paper needed to be made.
Deliverable
Design Strategy
For the ISTD ‘Open | Close’ brief, I selected The Jungle Book collection of stories written by Rudyard Kipling in the late 1800s. They were written as a set of stand-alone tales, originally published in magazines and then later as a book of short stories. I have chosen the first story titled “Mowgli’s Brothers” as it links well to a change in character and narrative arc as my opening and closing chapters.
The opening chapter is the first half of the story and sets the context of the character’s hierarchy and setting of the jungle. The closing chapter is the second half of the story which shows a passing in time from when the protagonist first enters the jungle, the lessons they learn along the way and the main challenge they need to overcome. The character grows in maturity and age, creating a good contrast from beginning to end as required by the ‘Open | Close’ brief.
Rudyard Kipling’s life views and motivations behind The Jungle Book stories contain an interesting link to the ideologies of the author’s British colonialist background, especially the Indian territory. Kipling’s stories of The Jungle Book’s characters, hierarchy and lessons are metaphors for the political powers in India during the 1800’s. The first is the selfish and unlawful ruling of Shere Khan the tiger which represents the political power of the Indian government disliked by Kipling at the time. This was juxtaposed and compared to the respectful governance of the wolf pack which represents the rule of the British colonies in India that Kipling was in better agreement.
This directed my concept research into the contemporary likeness of how surviving through lessons in Kipling’s jungle can be associated with similar lessons of the harsh urban jungle of Mumbai’s slums. A radical re-imagining of Kipling’s stories is told through the narrative of an orphaned girl, Malanesh, who survives in the chaotic urban jungle of contemporary Mumbai.
The target audience of this typographic book is enthusiasts of Kipling’s work. Furthermore, the target audience is broadened to people interested in India’s history, politics and socio-economic contexts as it captures a depiction of the life, difficulties and deeper realities faced by underprivileged people living in Mumbai.
Using type as image, a variety of paper stocks, textures and materials are incorporated to enhance the experiential narrative of the book.
Chosen book:
The Jungle Book - Rudyard Kipling
The Jungle Book stories were written by Kipling in the late 1800’s. They were originally published as short stories in magazines. The first story written was titled ‘Mowgli’s Brothers’ and sets the context of the character's hierarchy and scene setting of the jungle. This will be the story I use as the opening chapter to fit the brief requirements.
The original stories do not necessarily follow a chronological order after the introduction to the jungle. Rather they serve as stand-alone tales in the same scene written as moral lesson short stories. Therefore I have chosen the short story Tiger Tiger! as my closing chapter. The narrative arc of the two stories shows a passing in time from when Mowgli first enters the jungle, the lessons he learns along the way and the main challenge he overcomes. His character grows in maturity and age, creating a good contrast from beginning to end as required by the Open | Close brief.
Underpinning the narrative context
Paper considerations
Building the story
Visual concept development
An iterative process of typographic visual solutions was explored during the process of each narrative stage. Inspiration for these visuals was taken from the physical environments of Mumbai's slums. Further visual ideation was created from the intensity of the emotions experienced by the characters in Kipling's original story as well as the people in the slums of Mumbai. Through iterative stages of typographic crafting, as shown below, the best options for final images were chosen. To full visual development process can be viewed here.
Colour
This colour palette was directly taken from street and lifestyle scenes as well as clothing worn by the people in the Mumbai slums. A rich colour palette of bright colours creates a dramatic colour pop against the background of the dark pages of the book.
This was strategically chosen to show the vibrant people, culture and emotions in the overwhelmingly dark and ominous scenes of the slums and The Jungle Book story. The book's bright white cover was chosen to create a stark contrast to the inner dark pages of the book. This aims to heighten the unsuspecting narrative and radical twist in the re-imagination of Kipling’s story.
Typography
The book consists of three typefaces. The primary typeface Brother 1816 is used in the body copy text as the font ‘light’ for its easily legible and clean qualities. Brother 1816 is used in the font ‘black’ and manipulated as typographic image elements in places of the book's visual narrative. The secondary typefaces Salvation and Cigno are used primarily as typographic images with the exception of where the narrative images are also made to be read such as the incorporated book title, chapter headings and endpapers.
The typeface choice of Salvation was motivated by its rough and gritty qualities which bring an authentic representation of the slums of Mumbai’s urban jungle. Cigno is used as the complementary typeface to Salvation in the image-making process. It was chosen for its elegant handwritten qualities inspired by the symbol styles in the Indian language written scripts.
Grid system
The book utilises a six-column grid. A flexible grid system allows for suitable column widths, placements and shapes. The outer margins are 1,5 cm in width and the inner margin is 2,5 cm to allow adequate space for the binding.
The body copy text never exceeds 7cm, the width of three columns. The page numbers are aligned to the bottom left or right corners of the margin lines.
