Form Over Content is a set of 64 experimental “books” that explores form and design in relation to content. Using the text from Bruno Munari’s collection of essays Design As Art, I created distinct experiences ranging from the traditional book to a digital video to a set of postcards to an inkless, laser cut poster.
At a time when technological innovation is speeding up, the range of diversity is shrinking. Despite having more and more media options, there is a lack of variety in form and design within each. With Form Over Content I exercised my control as a designer by playing with Munari’s text in order to shape the experience of the viewer. For example: experiencing this text as a musical arrangement is vastly different than experiencing it as a set of articles on the internet. Each change in form provides a new experience, even if the content remains the same.
This study set out to better understand why there are set formats and design norms for content delivery, specifically books, and how and when we, as designers, should challenge that. While working on my thesis, I was surprised to find how excited viewers were with the visual immediacy of my “books” despite the sometimes illegible designs. Although making content legible is an important objective, that alone isn’t enough. We must utilize the full range of form and design to construct an engaging experience with the content.
Simply put this is a book of images that are meaningful to me. For this project I looked through over 60,000 images that I’ve been saving over the last decade and choose my top 256. I’m really drawn to images with similarities and as a visual person there is something so satisfying about making a diptych or overlapping images, especially since pairing or juxtaposing pictures has the potential to change the meaning.
Because there was no set order or text to help structure the pages, I choose to focus on image pairings and placement as well as the pace and narrative of the book as a whole. This task was challenging but gratifying. The final book is 8 x 10 inches, 334 pages, perfect bound, and mostly black and white with the exception of about 25 key pages where color felt necessary.
During this project, as I do with most book projects, I made mini mock-ups to help with sequencing and layout. I’m not sure if it’s the color, the size (1.5 x 2 x 2.5 inches), the form, the fact that it’s a picture book, or all of the above, but the final mock-up I made is the epitome of a book as an object. When viewers hold it in their hands and unfold the pages, it becomes more of a toy than a book. While the full-size book is met with intrigue and interest, the mini is met with pure joy, which is interesting because the content is nearly identical.
This app, designed to help farmers monitor and manage their livestock, was born out of personal experience. In 2009, I worked on a dairy farm in the South of Iceland for six months and became aware of the use of technology on modern farms. It was something I had never considered, but technology is especially important now that farms have fewer actual workers.
The farmer I worked for lives in rural Iceland and never attended high school. However, he is quick to embrace technological advances that make the farm more efficient. Because his farm is his livelihood, he cares about every detail. For example, all the milking cows on the farm have a microchip in their collar that controls the automatic feeder and monitors how much each cow eats. All that data is sent via email to the farmer and he reviews it daily. If a cow is eating less than usual he knows she might be sick and follows up immediately.
Many farmers keep notes on livestock detailing their lineage, schedules, health records, etc. This app would make it easy to have all that information in one place and would even allow for organizing and cross-referencing quickly. By utilizing technology that already exists, such as microchips in collars and geo-tagging, it could offer live updates on animals’ vitals as well as their location and notify the user if something is out of the ordinary.
In preparation to prototype this app, I researched and visited family farms, interviewed farmers about their technology use and needs, and looked into other similar apps and their shortcomings. As a designer, it is important to always have an audience in mind, but for this project in particular I focused solely on the functionality and the user’s needs. I compiled my findings into a profile of a possible user, made app maps and flowcharts, generated possible scenarios, and did user testing of prototypes. All in all it was a really interesting project and I was pleased to hear several farmers say they would use this app on a daily basis.
This typeface was my first attempt at type design. It was heavily inspired by hand-setting Garamond for letterpress projects. Although there are many digital versions of Garamond, I thought I would try to make one myself. I wanted to make a Garamond that was quirky and slightly irregular, the way lead type is after being used too much, but also modernize that look with extra features such as accents and ligatures.
There is no better way to describe the process of making a typeface than the phrase “The devil is in the details.” Loving typography and typesetting (both hand setting and digital) is not enough to be an accomplished type designer. Apparently it takes practice, time, and focused attention to systematic details. I really enjoyed drawing each letterform, but making all the glyphs work together as a system, and especially setting the metrics, was a challenge.
Although Maramond did not turn out to be the groundbreaking Garamond I had envisioned, the process of making it made me a much more aware and thoughtful typographer. Never have I spent so much time considering letterforms, spacing, and legibility. Because of this, it gave me a new appreciation for talented type designers and a renewed love of typesetting, which seems like a breeze in comparison to spacing a brand new typeface.
This project was made in collaboration with Immanuel Yang. Together, we worked to revitalize and bring to the forefront the work of the Japanese poet Matsuo Basho (1644–1694). His haikus have a refreshing simplicity that resonated with us despite being nearly 350 years old. Our challenge was to relate the simplicity and stillness of his words in a powerful, yet minimal way across platforms.
Once we choose suitable typefaces and a photographer (Mary Jo Hoffman, stillblog.net) the process was seamless. The first thing we did was to create a stamp-like logo for the poet to help unite the pieces. We then made lock screens for the iPhone and the iPad as well as a book cover, a tote bag, a t-shirt, a large poster, and a prototype video.
The video is a sketch of our idea for an installation piece which would ideally be located on a blank wall in a less crowded part of a city. The wall would appear empty until someone walked past it triggering the video to start. The text would then flutter in and out in a swirl of leaves, coming together for a brief moment to spell out the following haiku: along this road, goes no one, this autumn eve.
The poster is the most visually complex piece of the series, but by utilizing symmetry and a straightforward layout we were able to maintain a certain level of simplicity. We felt that if we were going to create printed material we should take full advantage of its strengths, one of which is existing at a fixed size. Our goal was to use the size and design of the poster to draw in the viewer and encourage him or her to become fully immersed.
Tungla Tungna, meaning "moon speak" or "moon tongue" in Icelandic, is a publication about poetry in translation and the space between two languages, specifically English and Icelandic. As an outsider living in Iceland, especially one attempting to learn this ancient language, I often wished for a publication to offer inspiration and encouragement or at least the occasional incentive. So I made one.
This project combines a lot of my loves - poetry, Icelandic, landscapes, handlettering, the complexity of translation, both literal and cultural. In this 100 page publication there is original poetry by friends and myself, an in depth review of a recent Icelandic poetry book, an original short story, a look at untranslatable words, and a photographic editorial featuring photographs of the Ring Road paired with Icelandic proverbs. On every page I tried to keep the typesetting simple and straightforward. My goal was to have the text align as much as possible, English on the left and Icelandic on the right.
There is also a digital version of the publication that utilizes the magic of audio. On every page of the digital publication there is a little drawing of a bearded man with a speech bubble that reads "Ekkert mál fyrir Þórð tungu mál" meaning "No problem for Thor the linguist." If the user presses the button on any page, Thor will read the content whether it's in English or Icelandic. He also gives a little tutorial in the beginning of the digital publication about Icelandic pronunciation so that anyone can begin to get a feel for the language.
This zine is an ongoing personal project that began when I was living in Reykjavík in 2011. At the time I was taking a break from art school to live in Iceland and study Icelandic at the national university. Although Icelandic is a creative language, I still needed an outlet for visual expression. Plus, I was experiencing what the Icelanders call “skammdegi,” meaning deep winter or short days, as well as the separation and excitement one feels when living in a new place. Living abroad renewed my love of mail art and the dark days of winter felt like the ideal time to start dabbling in Photoshop.
The word “hogwash,” a common expression in Missouri, reminded me of home. It’s also meant to remind the viewers that the whole thing is an endeavor of love and whimsy and as such, should not be taken too seriously. The first issue, Malarkey, was made in MS Word, printed in an attic, and mailed to a few friends in eight countries. The second issue, Tomfoolery, was made in inDesign and printed at Parsons. It was mailed, but also emailed, to friends all over the world.
Although there are only two issues so far, the project extends beyond the zine. It has existed as a blog of daily collages as well as posters and postcards. I am constantly making new work in the name of Hogwash and enjoy having a space where I can just make images without a specific function or purpose in mind. The project has been a great way to see my aesthetics and methods change and evolve. Since starting it, I’ve moved to Brooklyn and graduated design school. I have also had more exposure to book arts and met many kindred spirits, which has served as great encouragement to continue Hogwash.
Inside the Golden Days of Missing You is a small edition of letterpress books that tell the story of a relationship in three parts. Although the book begins with a prologue that lays out the story in its entirety, the reader still goes through the chapters the way many go through a relationship despite knowing the most likely outcome.
The first chapter, Into a Story, Into a Dream, is about meeting someone and feeling totally overwhelmed with excitement. Unfortunately, this is a short chapter and the one that follows, It’s a Fox Hunt, It’s an F-Stop, It’s a 12-Acre Wood, is far more complicated. The third and final section, No, I Don’t Really Want to Die, I Only Want to Die in Your Eyes, has two parts, including a surprise ending that is not included in the prologue. This last section describes the unexpected shift from pain to peace, finally stating, “Final words are so hard to devise; I promise I’ll always remember your pretty eyes, your pretty eyes.”
This book was designed, printed, and bound in May of 2013 in Manhattan and Brooklyn, NY. All the text was borrowed, and reorganized to create a narrative, from the discography of the Silver Jews, a now defunct band that were together from 1989, the year of my birth, until 2009. These lyrics were in all likelihood written by David Berman, but it is hard to know for sure. This book was letterpress printed using Garamond Bold 10, 12, 14, and 18 point lead type as well as hand-cut linoleum blocks onto Mohawk Superfine white text weight paper in the Parsons Print Shop. The first five photos in the book were taken using a disposable Kodak camera in the summer on the Amtrak Coast Starlight train. The final photo is a passport photo, also taken during the summer, by a Walgreen’s photo department employee in Saint Louis, MO. All photos were printed on Epson Matte Presentation Paper using a Canon Pixma MG3120.
This book is a reworking of the text on the wikipedia page Maritime History of California. At the time this was made in 2013, it was one of the top 100 longest wikipedia pages and I wanted to see how it would translate into book form. My first thought was that the book should be small and portable like a manual or a prayer book. I wanted it to be a simple, easy to read book with short lines of text and plenty of leading. Although the text is verbatim, I did omit all the images and instead used the materials to help tell the story.
The book is 3 x 5 inches, hard cover, perfect bound with smooth, slightly translucent french folded vellum pages. Each chapter title page has a blue insert that can be removed and used as a bookmark or a place to jot down notes. The book also has blue tabs that get slightly lighter as the book progresses. The tabs help with navigation, give the book an encyclopedic feel, and are indicative of the waning natural resources that the text discusses.
As with most books, I made mini mock-ups throughout the process to check on the sequencing, layout, and pacing of the book. The 1 x 1.5 inch accordion mini pictured here was a useful tool. It helped me realize the pages were too dense with text and that the tabs might work better on the page if they were rounded. Although this is just a mock-up, the text is legible and I was surprised by how many wanted to pick it up and read it because of its size and inviting form.
