Continuation of Impact & Empathy Project
Step 4: More Research
Research is a very important part of my design practice so I wanted to dive deeper into it before showing my iterations.
I started my research by deciding to focus on the topic of Disability Rights. This cause is very important to me because My grandpa is an amputee and has Parkinson’s disease, also my mom is an SLP and my sister is an OT who both work with disabled children. Because of this I’ve always been aware of the different disabilities and the difficulties that may come with them, but I’m also always trying to learn more and become more aware of how society treats and reacts to people with disabilities.
I wanted to collect quotes about Disability Rights and Accessibility to base some posters on (going back to the projects original idea of creating a library of posters based on public thoughts). I started by watching the documentary Crip Camp on Netflix. It is about the Disability Rights Movement in the 1970s in the US. It starts at Camp Jened, a summer camp for disabled people, that introduced a lot of the campers to a world without barriers which pushed many of them to fight for what they deserve everyday in society.
Through the film I was able to start collecting quotes, many of which are still relevant today. For example: “I don’t think I felt, really, shame about my disability. What I felt more was exclusion.” “If I have to feel thankful about an accessible bathroom, when am I ever gonna be equal in the community?” And “You can pass a law but until you can change society’s attitudes, that law won’t mean much.”
I continued to collect quotes by watching Youtube videos by Disability Rights Activists, such as Stella Young, and also from things written and said by my Grandpa.
The second part of my research was largelt focused on the definition, purpose, and history of protests. My primary source for this was the book “Protests. The Aesthetics of Resistance,” By Basil Roggers.
Step 5: Iterations
Next, I started my iterations! My iterations can be broken down into 4 categories: Quote Signs, Alphabet and Test Strips, Tools and Hands, and Micro-Photography.
Quote Posters:
After selecting a few quotes from my research I started sketching ideas for how they could be shown visually. Then created them as handmade protests signs.
This was all done pretty fast and with materials I had readily available. I wanted to try to mimic the actual experience of creating protest signs as much as possible
Alphabet and Test Strips:
After doing the quote posters I decided to take a step back and focus on just the form of my iterations. I did this by writing out the alphabet and doing a test strip with each of my materials in order to really explore the mark making of each one.
Like I said before, I was only using materials that I already had or the I easily found (like the cardboard, found by the trash cans of my dorm). The materials were black magnum tip sharpie on cardboard and paper, multicolored chisel tip sharpie on cardboard and paper, black acrylic paint on cardboard and paper, and multicolored spray paint on cardboard.
Tools and Hands:
After completing these test I started to think about how important the tools are in the production of protest art. I decided to take pictures of all the mediums I used and edit out the background in order to really focus on the objects as art themselves.
During one of crits, Morgan brought up the idea of photographing our hands after working on a poster in order to capture the marks left on them by the materials. This is something I had been doing in my painting practice and has also interested me. The hand is such an essential tool in the making process and also shows a more personal connection to the work by revealing the person who made it.
Micro-Photography:
Lastly, Morgan and I were interested in experimenting with micro-photography! We rented a lens for the day and started photographing our handmade iterations close-up. We had some technical issues at first, bbut eventually figured it out and had a lot of fun getting this unique perspectives on our materials and signs.
Here are some notes from the final crit of my iterations. It seemed like the class was very interested in how physical my work was, the photography I was doing, and the look into the process behind the work. Going into the book, I wanted to make sure I highlighted these aspects.
Step 6: Start of Book
As I started the book, I wanted to make sure it wasn’t just a process book or just a sequence of my iterations. I wanted to include my early research from “Protest. The Aesthetics of Resistance,” personal thoughts and writing, and also highlight the connections to the Disability Rights Movement.
I initially did this by creating very distinct sections. Each one starting with a passage from the book with notes from me on the side. Then opening a section with the material iterations with an image of the tool going into the tests. I wanted to incorporate different sized pages in my book, so between the test pages I planned on putting a smaller page with a micro shot of the iterations. The section would then end with a quote poster in that material with the quote written on the facing page.
From my crit, I realized that my format was too stiff and wasn’t allowing me to really showcase all the work I had done. When there was text, there was too much of it. It needed room to breathe and also needed to interact with my work and the photographs more.
Though people had really enjoyed the physicality of my iterations, it seemed like that part was missing from my book.
Step 7: Big Changes
I decided to restructure my book in order to give myself more room to tell my reasoning behind the iterations and my opinions on protests in general. I created full spreads dedicated to my voice which are indicated by a hand picture and teal text.
I moved the book excerpts onto smaller pages sandwiched between micro images of spray paint. This allowed me to show more of my photography and also really focus on the format of the text. I called out certain parts of the text that I found important by bolding them. I did the same for the quotes; allowing them to live on their own but still form a connection with my work.
I also included a lot more images of the work itself. Each spread zooms into the work until you reach a micro image on a smaller page.
Step 8: Cover
After working for awhile on the book itself I started to think of what I wanted the cover to look like. I had been planning to use silver paper for some of the smaller pages in the book so I decided it would be good to also use it for the cover. I was initially thinking of putting another micro shot of spray paint on the cover, but then thought about how interested everyone in the actually physical work. This made me decide to actually spray pain the cover after printing the title.
I didn't really now how it would turn out or what exactly I wanted, so I had to print multiple copies and try different methods of spray painting. I varied the amount of spray paint, the order of the colors, how/if i covered parts of the paper, and other elements for each one.
I was very happy with the variation I was able to get through this method. Spray paint has such an interesting texture and bright colors, I’m glad I was able to find a way to really showcase this material (although the book is still a little stinky, sorry haha).
Step 9: Printing, Cutting, and Binding
(And this is were the stress really sets in haha)
The next step was to actually turn this thing into a physical object! While designing the book I knew I wanted to use different paper for the page sizes. I also wanted to continue to use materials I already had available, like I did in my iterations, to connect to the use of easily found materials in handmade protest signs. I decided to use thick silver paper for the micro photography, thought it would be good for them to be sturdier and had a feeling the metallic surface would interact nicely with the images. For the book text and quotes I decided to use newsprint, I think it connects to the idea of found information (like a newspaper) and was also something I had a lot of.
After deciding on the paper it was time to actually print…and that was a struggle (as always). I don’t have any pictures from this step because I was too overwhelmed and frustrated to think about that. After finally figuring out a way to print on the thick paper correctly and cutting down newsprint sheets to fit in the printer, I was able to print the small sheets…and that turnde out the be the easy part. For some reason the computer or printer kept flipping random pages in the main part of my book. I tried switching the print settings in multiple ways but nothing work, so I had to manually go back into my book document and flip the pages that the printer was flipping. It was a pain, but it worked! As in all printing, persistence was key.
While tearing down the newsprint I discovered that I really liked the feel and look of the hand torn edge. I decided to make things more difficult for myself (again), and hand tear all of the newsprint and main pages (on the floor of my bedroom). I really love the softness of this edge and the extra layer of physicality it adds to the book.
Final step was to bind. I chose to coil bind my book because of the multiple page sizes and ultimately the thickness of it. Additionally, the coil adds another texture and physical material to the finished product which is a nice touch. I had to get a coil from the UPS store because the ones provided were way too small. They only had black, but I decided to also order clear ones to try. They haven’t arrived yet, but I am excited to try them out when they do!
Step 10: Final Product
One of my least favorite things about printing a book is having to photograph it and return it to the screen. It seems like it defeats the purpose of designing a physical object to me, but it is also essential in sharing the final product.
Overall, I am extremely proud of this book! I think it has a physical presence and rhythm to it that I haven’t been able to achieve in other books I’ve made thus far. I was able to add some physical manipulation to it while still staying focused on the design itself. In the past, I believe I have either gone overboard on physically manipulation, to the point where it becomes distracting and honestly not done well enough, or I’ve shied away from it trying to avoid the other path. Here, I think i successfully combined the two/
