ISTD Student A2017

International Society of Typography Design

Outcome: PASS

Achieved ISTD membership

BRIEF

The brief that I chose was the Dead Wood Archive which 

asks to celebrate a book that lives in a Learning Resource 

Centre close to me. We must utilise the Dewey Decimal 

System to locate a book.

STRATEGY

In this project the focus is on the author and his life. He wrote a few books sounding quite sophisticated and a bit strange. His life story is very confusing and research stated that he was a perform-er/showman/magician/writer/conman. Even in books written about him, no one had a complete un-derstanding who he was, as he kept it a secret. He was a colourful character charming his way to the top as a psychic. In this publication the goal is to expose him for the different personas that he had and how he fooled/conned many people.

CONCEPT

The concept is to expose Alexander Conlin as a conman through exposing his statements based on his two personas (Dr.Q and The Man Who Knows) from two of the books he wrote that contradicts with each other. The truth unfolds from a showman to complete conman chaos. The book starts as a poster announcing Alexander’s show as The Man Who Knows with a double cover and the bottom cover decaying/distorted to indicate the concept of the publication. The book continues from a colourful, cliche showman character, leaving clues of contradiction and starts to distort and fall into chaos as the truth/secrets are revealed.