This week we got two new briefs - Design in Context and Typography.
The Design in Context one is quite big, as it has multiple projects in it - an essay, a live brief, creating a digital portfolio and an optional B-hive project. In a way, I feel as if it is just an extended PDP module, as it’s related to what we had to do before (CVs and thinking about what we want to do in the future), except the live brief. I find it rather strange, as we have to design three folders and a case in which these folders would be put. It’s mainly because usually people simply use plain folders, they don’t really design them, so I can’t really see the point in doing that. But as I came to realise, when studying graphic design, you often have to do things that don’t really make sense to you. And that’s ok.
I did not enjoy the Typography module that much last year (it was interesting and a good experience but it wasn’t exactly enjoyable to me), so I was afraid it might be the same now. But give me a brief that has anything to do with book designing and I’ll most likely enjoy it a lot. Allow me to create a book from scratch about a subject I’m passionate about, and it’s even better. I’m quite excited about this project. Not only because I get to present one of my favourite subjects (astronomy) but also because I have to produce a book - and I absolutely love books.
I don’t want to make a book about astronomy in general because that would be quite challenging (and there would be so much to say) and I think it’s much better to just choose a specific subject. And for now, I’m thinking about the Big Bang theory. During the past few years, I realised that many people are scientifically illiterate. Not meaning that they are stupid or they cannot understand scientific principles or theories, but simply that they either don’t know about them or didn’t understand them properly. I think that is a shame because knowing more about science (and particularly astronomy) means knowing more about the world, the universe and well, us. It’s a shame to live in this world without trying to understand it. I don’t expect everyone to be a pro in physics (I’m not - I don’t even like physics, nor math) and you don’t need to be. As Neil deGrasse Tyson said, “ [Science] is distrusted not because of what it can do, but because people don’t understand how it does what it can do — and that absence of understanding, or misunderstanding, of the power of science is what makes people afraid” and that is, sadly, very true. I think the reason why people are scientifically illiterate is not only because some of them don’t pay attention and don’t try to understand (because that happens as well, let’s admit it) but also because this kind of information is often not explained properly, in a way that people without a scientific background would understand it.
The Big Bang theory is one of the best examples - I have seen so many people who did not “believe” (a rather silly choice of words but I’ll just go with it) in this theory but honestly, most of them don’t really know what it is about. It’s not simply saying that there was just an explosion all of a sudden for no reason at all and then, there you have it, the whole universe with all the stars and the planets in place. And then there are those who agree with the theory but still, they misunderstood it. There are many things to be clarified about this and I am thinking of beginning with the actual meaning of the word “theory” when it comes to science (many people are not aware that ‘theory’ in terms of science is quite different from the term we usually use in other contexts).
I am quite lucky because I already have a lot of research (I just need to put it in the sketchbook) - I have been reading books on this subject for years and I have about two or three notebooks full of notes. I’m planning to write down all of them and then write the content of the book. I feel like it will be easier to think of things such as format, colours, typefaces and size once I have the content.
