Of Polarisation
Starting with the word polarisation from Richard Serra’s verb list, I began to think of inventive ways to create a format and grid influenced from the definitions of this word. I was interested in the idea of a polarised Britain after Brexit as a political definition and the opposite of this being the scientific definition of the polarisation of light. This created lots of visual ideas of opposites, size, division, folds, repairing and more.
My initial typeface choices visually reflected the idea of having an obvious ‘opposite’ with horizontal and vertical lines through using a monospaced typeface. From this, I experimented with typefaces inspired by political party advertisements. I made a decision to use Big Caslon, insipred by the “strong and stable my arse” poster by Jeremy Deller as its serifs still gave that slight sense of having horizonal and vertical elements.
I began to experiment with tracing paper as a reference to the polarisation of light. It soon became clear that the slits in the paper were no longer needed and I should work with the paper alone to create a sense of hierarchy.
I entered the Nationwide Degree Show competition with this design project, out of 1000+ entries it was featured on a digital billboard in London!