Lost Languages

  • Bethany Inman
Brief:
To research previous explorers/expeditions and create a piece of communication design that captures the content in a new way.
Concept:
After learning about a group of linguists who travelled to Arunachal Pradesh, India, and discovered an unheard dialect – Koro – that is becoming increasingly endangered, I decided to create something to highlight the impact of languages becoming extinct.
Solution:
A series of flip-books that act as a metaphor for how languages can disappear so suddenly; in order to create an impact upon the reader, the language disappears towards the end of the book.
The main typeface used is Sans Forgetica, which is scientifically proven to help you remember what you read about, which will make the words, and in turn the language, stick in people’s minds.
To convey how fleeting languages can be, the words appear and disappear gradually, before being lost entirely. The words are ordered from more positive words at the start, to words that are associated with being defeated and dying.
Each flip-book is on a different stock; the darker the stock, the more endangered the language. A band around each book features a landscape from where the language is spoken which subtly confronts the reader with what is at stake, as does the copy at the end of each flip-book. The band holds the flip-book together while it is not being used, and pairs perfectly with the colour of each Japanese bind.
DISCLAIMER: 
Some of the images used in this project were found online and used to help visualise the project.​​​​​​​
Sans Forgetica was developed by RMIT University, and used to visualise my concept.

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