The design challenge put forward in the brief was to explore the meaning of death, to investigate various viewpoints of death and how a unique and different perspective of death can be presented. In order to address this, a publication that speaks of death in the riots of July 1983 in Sri Lanka. This topic was chosen for several significant reasons. Mainly because the events of the riots have predominantly been publicized by news reports rather than talking about survivors personal experiences – who are an integral part of the society today.
The riots of July 1983 (Black July) was a chief contributor to a thirty year civil war in the country. To the younger generation of Sri Lankans, this subject only exists as stories about the riots heard from parents and grandparents, who personally experienced it. This publication is aimed at the aforementioned younger generation of Sri Lankans to help them gain insight on the events of Black July and understand the brutality faced by their predecessors. The secondary target audience is of a global scale. Those who are unaware about the events of July 1983 in Sri Lanka.
In the book, the reader is presented with two narratives, Death is the main narrative. The secondary narrative is that of the victims. The narrative of the victims is panicked, desperate and emotionally charged, whereas Death remains placid and maintains a sophisticated demeanor throughout the book regardless of the magnitude of the content within. The narrative of death has been derived from the book “ The Book Thief” by Mark Zusak. While the narrative of the victims are testimonials from www.blackjuly83.com as well as a group of 10 people in order to attain this information, many targeted participants were unwilling to discuss the matter. The ultimate aim of this book is to highlight the similarities of this riot to many other riots and wars around the world, with victims who are merely innocent citizens. The aim is to encourage the reader to question why history repeats itself. The visual style of the layouts are inspired by the work of David Carson, the DADA movement , and street graphics. This is due to their chaotic and spontaneous nature. Sophisticated, elegant and placid.Death remains nonchalant throughout the book regardless of the magnitude of the content within.Adobe Caslon Pro was the typeface used for the personification of Death in order to reflect the sophisticated tone and character. Akzidenz-Grotesk Pro was chosen to keep the typeface neutral so that the reader’s attention in the first person accounts is not diverted by the preconceptions of the typeface. In addition the overall voice of the first person accounts are meant to be agitated and distressed. So the use of a neutral typeface allowed the meaning of the words to be more prominent. This aspect was further enhanced by modifying words to portray what they denote. With regards to imagery, three images were used to augment the impact of the narrative for the reader. The first and second image were used due to it’s obvious violent nature. The third shows the destruction of property in contrast to the other two which shows clear violence against people.
Visual Style