Purpose: To show a progression in the relationship between a patient and a disease juxtaposed with a loved one/caregiver and the patient.
Start with Concept and Research
I started with my concept:
Exemplify how it feels to go through this as a loved one and adapt your relationship to the person's needs. While at the same time showing how the person with the disease might be perceiving their day-to-day life.
Then I moved to the research:
Understanding the disease and the anatomy of the brain.
Start the design process.
I started with images and a mood board:
Test options for a color palette and decide on a vehicle to exhibit the concept.
In order to show the concept the way that I wanted to, I decided that the best vehicle would be a journal type of book. I was really looking at bullet journals for inspiration on how to format and understand what I wanted to include in the design elements.
How it started...
As I started going through the process of creation I decided that the finalized book should be something smaller. I decided it should be closer to a sheet of printer paper folded in half "hamburger style". This meant less room for the content to be excessively normal type heavy and more typography and type as image.
The idea of the text as an image or grand typography was not as interesting to me because I wanted the content to stand out.
How it's going...
I started with the idea that our stories (mine and my grandmothers) would be intertwined within the book. And I would use french paper to print the portions of my story on in order to make them stand out from the pages like a dutch door-style bullet journal.
I had created elements from scans of medical diagrams from books in the library. As well as using Bitmaps to create the depth in something like the flowers which were such an important part of my relationship with her growing up. combining these elements with the photos of her and I felt like a great way to combine our stories and show the interconnectivity of them.
From there I created spreads and samples for posters or single pages to be blown up to present in the gallery.
I then after receiving feedback determined I needed a new way of thinking about the interconnectivity aspect of this project.
Maybe they didn't need to be literally together...
I also realized I needed something more concrete to put on the wall for the exhibition. A trio of posters/infographics then came into play as well.
Now it was time to really edit.
How it ended...
I decided and finalized a few decisions.
- How I would bind it: Screw post bound with gold screw posts
- How I would convey the notion of interconnectivity: Vellum overlays with my writings and colors
- What would I put on the wall(this was pretty easy once I got rolling): Pictures of her throughout the progression of her life mixed with the three posters and vinyl lettering.
And this was the final product...
Click here to flip through the book.