Conceptual Typography | Print
Proposed book cover designs for the University of Hawaiʻi Japanese language textbooks (Volume I of Musubi: A New Approach to Language and Culture in Reading & Writing and Oral Communication).
This design uses a modern illustration style to appeal to a younger audience and express the excitement of learning Japanese language.
Adobe Illustrator
Fall, 2020
Frank Gehry designs buildings with unconventional and nonrepeating forms, completely rejecting the straight, uniform squares of modernism. To Gehry, the most fascinating buildings are the ones that create interesting shapes in both the building itself as well as its surrounding spaces.
This project reflects Gehry’s design philosophy by showing how positive and negative space work together to create a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts. This is accomplished in two ways. The first is by creating meaning that can only be understood when pieces are viewed as a whole. The second is by using red measurement lines are used throughout the system to reveal the process of designing, in which the shapes and amount of space are never arbitrary. These lines also add the implication of a work in progress, which mirrors Gehry’s famous “half-finished” aesthetic.
The posters, card and book fold to the same dimensions to fit in this sliding box. The box introduces the A, B, and C measurements that will be used throughout the system.
The posters measure the spaces between letters. The bigger letters are equally separated by Length C. When folded, only a single "f" shows. With every step of unfolding, more information is given, which replicates Gehry's philosophy that design is stronger when viewed as a whole.
The cards measure the spaces between words. Words in the body copy are organized in increments of five letter-spaces. The bigger words spaced out by Length C and are used as guidelines to connect the cards together like a puzzle. When put together, it reads "Architecture is the play between spaces" on one side and "It humanizes without resorting to decoration" on the other side.
The book measures the spaces between sentences. Every sentence is separated by the leading space. A, B, and C measurements make up the margins and column width of the layout.
