For my Final Major Project I would like to produce a set of publications based on the book about dictators I did for this unit. Their theme would cover world leaders, different government systems and position of women in politics.

Based on a book produced for this unit I would like to carry on with political theme, showing my point of view. I would like to cover todays dicta-tors that obey basic human rights and democracy concentrating on their appearance and finding what they have in common like moustache. One of the books I will make will be about dictators that have no moustache (contrary to the book from this unit). Another book will be about women who rule. De-pending on what I find in my research I may divide the publications into countries or continents like the dictators of America, Africa etc.

As far as my timetable for FMP I plan to finish my research and choose the themes for my publica-tions by the end of February. In March I will have chosen images that I will use in the books, then I will work on layouts. In April I will produce the im-ages for the publications by screen printing them

WHAT: Set of publications THEME: Political and cultural issues HOW: Screenpinted and hand bound

FMP Proposal

and end of April beginning of May I will put the books together.

To develop what I did for this unit I would also like to redo my dictators book by screen printing the images of dictators not use some ones photos and this is what I will for other publications not use the secondary images but mine (where possible). I have been doing screen prints many times starting from year zero to my exchange in Barcelona where they had full serigraphy studio. On top of that my historical and political knowledge will be based on my research and what I have learnt doing A levels in history. Skills that I will have to develop for this project would be typography and layout design.

Intended audience for my publications would be people interested in graphic design and books, other designers who appreciate unconventional books. This year I have been to few book fares (for my research and external positioning) to see how they work and this would be a place I would like see my publications.

Research

Research

I

Imperial War Museum

To put my head into political issues I decided to visit Im-perial War museum to find inspiration for my books and research. I found a lot of interesting posters which were quite funny but covered a serious political situation. Us-ing satire and irony is much more engaging and making people aware of the problem.

Politicians vs dogs

Taking my inspiration from satirical posters from II World War I decided to combine humour with politics and this is what came out of it.

I compared politicians with dogs that are alike to them. You know how always a dog owner is similar to a dog he has, well this is something similar but I guess work-ing backwards. Maybe it could be a suggestion for politicians of what kind of dog they should have. I started my comparison with Clement Freud, Winston Churchill and Margaret Thatcher.

Amnesty International

To get deeper into politics and social affairs on Saturday I went to Trafalgar Square to listen to Amnesty International appeal to Egypt. To my great surprise there were mainly women who represented Amnesty International and spoke to the people. They made me decide that I want to make one of my books about women.

Appeal to Egypt on Trafalgar Square

New FMP Proposal

For my FMP I intend to produce two publications/ books. First about dicta-tors from the past I mean who are dead (based on the book from previous unit). This book will be produced in a form of children’s book but for adults. This will be an educational book for people who don’t remember the history and such

people as Stalin or Hitler. This is why I intend to produce it in the form as children’s book because when people don’t have the knowledge they are like children and they need to learn. I am aware of the controversy it might cause but it is my intention. The form of the children’s book has an educational function that is why I believe it will work. As well it is based on the concept of children’s building bricks where they learn shapes by putting them into the wholes provided (ex. a triangular brick goes in to the triangular hole). In this case one will have to fit a moustache to a certain dictator which makes this book interactive there fore more memorable.

The idea for this project came from the research I made which showed that very little people recognize Hitler or Stalin which I think is shocking. I believe that people should know their history and its mile stones. If the history is forgotten then it might be repeated and no one wants that. The purpose is to educate people through game/ inter activity and although it might seem shocking at first its aim is to evoke people’s reaction and attention. Historical themes have been often used by artist nowadays. An inspirational example for me is the work by Polish artist Zbirgniew Libera who made a German concentration camp out of Lego bricks. Zbig-niew said about his work: ‘my intention was to reflect on rationalism and education’. I think although it is controversial it works well and its form follows function, and evokes reaction.

Another artist I discovered through me research is Anselm Kiefer. Kiefer began his career as a photog-rapher with performances in which he mimicked the Nazi salute calling for Germans to remember and to acknowledge the loss to their culture through the mad xenophobia of the Third Reich Later his work became

more sculptural and involved not only national identity and collective memory, but also occult symbolism, theology and mysticism. The theme of all the work is the trauma experienced by entire societies, and the continual rebirth and renewal in life. In his work he tells that we would not be who we are without our history, it built us and we have to know where we came from, and what has happened in the history not to repeat its mistakes and evolve.

The second book I plan to create is a publication about countries under totalitarian regimes in the world today. Such as Cuba, Belarus, Burma, North Korea, Iran, Zim-babwe, Middle East countries like Egypt, Iraq, Jordan etc. and Maghreb countries: Morocco, Algeria, Libya, Mauritania, Tunisia.

My inspiration for this book came from current affairs in the world especially Middle East. I believe that fighting for democracy and freedom is an irreversible process and will come sooner or later for those countries. As we can see from current affairs it is like domino ef-fect and the great example for it are revolutions from 1989 (Autumn of Nations) which started in Poland and spread into other eastern European countries what lead to fall of communism. This book will tell about the dictatorship countries and their way to democracy.

It will be like a diary of ‘roads to freedom’. For each country there will be provided space to fill out (by its owner) when and what happened. So the people will be filling the book out when the changes have occurred like in Tunisia and Egypt (so it will be always up to date) and there fore everyone can create history in his book. I hope it will make people aware of political issues and remember the history.

Target audience for my publications would be adults interested in politics and current affairs, and those who would like to learn and be up to date. They could be also sold by Amnesty International to raise awareness and support the countries. The money for sold books could be donated to the countries in need.

Each box contains a set of bricks, that can be used to build the element of a concentration camp as shown on the box. All elements in the sets as well as those depicted on the boxes have either been taken from the mass-produced sets of LEGO bricks, or have been slightly altered by the artist. The prisoners are played by smiling skel-etons from the “Pirate” set, while slightly modified figurines from the “Police Station” set appear as tormenters. We also encounter the captain of the camp and the psychopathic doctor, conducting experiments on prisoners. Libera says: “Initially, I was considering building a Soviet gulag, but that didn’t work – it failed to refer to the images I’ve had in my head and did not communicate my ideas. My intention was to reflect on rationalism and education.” In the meantime the work has become an icon and – in various versions – was exhibited in galleries and museum collections across the globe. One of sets was purchased by the Jewish Museum in New York.

Concentration Camp

Zbigniew Libera

Jonathan Barnbrook

‘ It is always hard to tell what effect you are having, but I am pretty sure you will, you add to the general feel-ing of something being ‘wrong’. Even if it has no effect, you should still try. Once you stop thinking that you can change the world through your actions it means that ‘they’ have won, ‘they’ being all of those that have a selfish interest in keeping the world as it is and disad-vantaging or misleading the rest of us.’

Jamie Reid

Researching designer that cover political issues I remembered abut Janathan Barnbrook whose lecture I went to in my first year. Revisiting his work seemed to me more relevant then ever. I think he expresses his views and beliefs in a creative way. He comments on current affairs by putting his views into graphic design what makes his work very strong and personal.

Political design

Media research

As my project is about what is happening in the world now I am trying to be up to date watching daily news, reading news papers and listen-ing to the radio. Currently my focus is on Libya and current affairs in Middle East. I have a little dairy where I write daily information that I have gathered about the Arab uprisings.

This week I have been concentrating on Libya and its current affairs and demonstrations. Watching and reading the news I gathered a lot of research which I edited down to quotes I found the most moving and shocking about Libyan uprising and its dictator Mr Gadaffi.

Current affairs

As I have been concentration on current af-fairs as my main interest I have chosen to keep track on Libya. I have chosen to compare what different media channels say about the conflict in Libya. I am researching daily newspaper The Independent and weekly The Sunday Times. As well I am reading The Economist, watching Channel 4 News and listening to Polish Radio Trojka.

I am collecting information, taking notes and se-lecting relevant bits. I have chosen to research different media so I could compare what they say and select the most objective and factual parts.

The notebook below is the one I have been taking notes when watching Channel 4 News. Whereas the pages on the left present my notes from newspapers.

II

For the cover I have chosen to use a photo I took of destroyed bill-board. I think it represents war and human emotions when peoples lives are torn and destroyed. Inside the book are quotes I have gath-ered through research.

I have chosen the most moving and shocking ones, and I put them in chronological order so they would work as a publication. It is very

minimal and clean design which I think works well because it’s pure facts that boost dark corners of our imagination.

I have uploaded it as an ISSUU file to see how it would look like as a book. It can be found in my blog (post from 27th February 2011).

First mock up

This is my first and very rough mock up of my initial idea of the publication about Libya.

Book formats

This spread shows my research on different formats of books which I found most suitable for my publication. I would like it to be unconventional format that would suit its content the best. One of the ideas is to divide the book in two (Gaddafi’s and rebels side) or even three which would be the western world (the interven-tion). Another idea is based on Michael Landy’s exhi-

bition catalogue for installation Break Down (2001), in which he destroyed all of his possessions. He has sold the unfinished publication and then send the ending so people could add it to the catalogue. This would work well for my publication if the conflict in Libya will not be resolved by the time of the deadline. Then I could add the ending after.

Experimental binding

help

10.03.201110.03.2011

us?

worldWhy won’t the

We h

ave k

illed y

ou in

Ras

Lanu

f

we sha

ll kill

you w

herev

er we fi

nd yo

u in L

ibya

This are examples of a spread for my publication. I wanted them to be graphic and show the meaning of the text by typography. I think it works well but it rather looks like a poster or a book cover. It would be very tir-ing if all the spreads in my book would look like that. It also doesn’t fit the style I intended to use in my project. It looks to playful and busy. As well, it would not suit my target audience who are sophisticated adults. I think it would work better as a poster.

Typo games

This is my little typo-graphic experiment to show what is written only using type and punctuation marks.

help

10.03.201110.03.2011

us?

worldWhy won’t the

We h

ave k

illed y

ou in

Ras

Lanu

f

we sha

ll kill

you w

herev

er we fi

nd yo

u in L

ibya

This version is very pictorial. The right side represents a gun simply by using text and punctuation marks. The

black drop on the right side represents oil.

23.03.11

23.03.11 23.03.11

“There are demonstrations everywhere against this unjustice assault, which breaches the United Nations’ charter...This assault...is by a bunch of fascists who will end up in the dustbin of history. I am staying here, my home is here. I am staying in my tent.”

“The situation here is very bad. Tanks started shelling the town [Misrata] this morning. Snipers are taking part in the operation too. A civilian car was destroyed killing four children...the oldest is aged 13 years.”

“There are demonstrations everywhere against

this unjustice assault, which breaches the Unit-

ed Nations’ charter...This assault...is by a bunch

of fascists who will end up in the dustbin of his-

tory. I am staying here, my home is here. I am

staying in my tent.”

“The situation here is very bad. Tanks started

shelling the town [Misrata] this morning. Snipers

are taking part in the operation too. A civilian car

was destroyed killing four children...the oldest is

aged 13 years.”

23.03.11

23.03.11

“There are demonstrations everywhere against this unjustice assault, which breaches the United Nations’ charter...This assault...is by a bunch of fascists who will end up in the dustbin of history. I am staying here, my home is here. I am staying in my tent.”

“The situation here is very bad. Tanks started shelling the town [Misrata] this morning. Snipers are taking part in the operation too. A civilian car was destroyed killing four children...the oldest is aged 13 years.”

“There are Gaddafi supporters

who are going around w

hith the soldiers, they are pointing out houses. N

owhere is safe at this

time.”

“Any

fore

ign

mili

tary

act

ag

ains

t Lib

ya w

ill e

xpos

e al

l ai

r and

mar

itim

e tr

affic i

n th

e M

edite

rran

ean

Sea

to d

ange

r. C

ivili

an a

nd m

ilita

ry [f

acili

ties]

w

ill b

ecom

e ta

rget

s of L

ibya

’s co

unte

r-at

tack

. The

Med

iterr

a-ne

an b

asin

will

face

dan

ger.”

18.03.11

19.03.11

19.03.11

Gaddafi announced ceasefire and agreed to dialogue. “The key thing is the speech of Obama. My father is very comfortable and will co-operate.”

“He has been bombing Ajdabiya, he has been bombing Misrata from this morning. How can you trust him? He has shown no signs that he is prepared to abide by his own ceasefire.”

“There are Gaddafi supporters

who are going around w

hith the soldiers, they are pointing out houses. N

owhere is safe

at this time.”

“Any

fore

ign

mili

tary

act

ag

ains

t Lib

ya w

ill e

xpos

e al

l ai

r and

mar

itim

e tr

affic i

n th

e M

edite

rran

ean

Sea

to d

ange

r. C

ivili

an a

nd m

ilita

ry [f

acili

ties]

w

ill b

ecom

e ta

rget

s of L

ibya

’s co

unte

r-at

tack

. The

Med

iterr

a-ne

an b

asin

will

face

dan

ger.”

18.03.11

“There are Gaddafi supporters

who are going around w

hith the soldiers, they are pointing out houses. N

owhere is safe at this

time.”

25.02.11 26.02.11 27.02.11 28.02.11 01.03.11 02.03.11 03.03.11 04.03.11 05.03.11 06.03.11 07.03.11 08.03.1124.02.1123.02.1122.02.1121.02.1120.02.1119.02.1118.02.1117.02.11

“Any

fore

ign

mili

tary

act

ag

ains

t Lib

ya w

ill e

xpos

e al

l ai

r and

mar

itim

e tr

affic i

n th

e M

edite

rran

ean

Sea

to d

ange

r. C

ivili

an a

nd m

ilita

ry [f

acili

ties]

w

ill b

ecom

e ta

rget

s of L

ibya

’s co

unte

r-at

tack

. The

Med

iterr

a-ne

an b

asin

will

face

dan

ger.”

18.03.11 “There are Gaddafi supporters

who are going around whith the soldiers, they are pointing out houses. Nowhere is safe at this time.”

“Any foreign military act against Libya will expose all air and maritime traffic in the Mediterranean Sea to danger. Civilian and military [facilities] will become targets of Libya’s counter-attack. The Mediterra-nean basin will face danger.”

“There are demonstrations everywhere against this unjustice assault, which breaches the United Nations’ charter...This assault...is by a bunch of fascists who will end up in the dustbin of history. I am staying here, my home is here. I am staying in my tent.”

“The situation here is very bad. Tanks started shelling the town [Misrata] this morning. Snipers are taking part in the operation too. A civilian car was destroyed killing four children...the oldest is aged 13 years.”

23.03.11

21.03.11

21.03.11

“Libyans will never welcome America or the Europeans, they will never welcome Nato. This is our country. We fight here in Libya and we die here in Libya. We will not leave our land and we will liberate it.”

“People will rise up against this evil man now they see he cannot get away with terrorising people. We accept we could not have done this without foreign help, especially from the French, and we are very grateful. But...there must be a Libyan end to this.”

23.03.11

23.03.11

“There are demonstrations everywhere against this

unjustice assault, which breaches the United Na-

tions’ charter...This assault...is by a bunch of fas-

cists who will end up in the dustbin of history. I am

staying here, my home is here. I am staying in my

tent.”

“The situation here is very bad. Tanks started

shelling the town [Misrata] this morning. Snipers

are taking part in the operation too. A civilian car

was destroyed killing four children...the oldest is

aged 13 years.”

19.03.11

19.03.11

Gaddafi announced ceasefire and agreed to dialogue. “The key thing is the speech of Obama. My father is very comfortable and will co-operate.”

“He has been bombing Ajdabiya, he has been bombing Misrata from this morning. How can you trust him? He has shown no signs that he is wwwprepared to abide by his own ceasefire.”

“There are Gaddafi supporters who are going around whith the soldiers, they are pointing out houses. Nowhere is safe at this time.”

“Any foreign military act against Libya will expose all air and maritime traffic in the Mediterranean Sea to danger. Civilian and military [facilities] will become targets of Libya’s counter-attack. The Mediterra-nean basin will face danger.”

18.03.11

“There are Gaddafi supporters who are going around whith the soldiers, they are pointing out houses. Nowhere is safe at this time.”

“Any foreign military act against Libya will expose all air and maritime traffic in the Mediterranean Sea to danger. Civilian and military [facilities] will become targets of Libya’s counter-attack. The Mediterra-nean basin will face danger.”

18.03.11

LayoutsThose are different versions of trial layouts for my publi-cation. I was trying to do something in between the first layout I made which was a bit too simple and the last pictorial and playful one. My new idea I would like to incorporate into the design is a time line of the Libyan unrest. Firstly, I would like to show two opposite sides of the conflict, then the date and the time line.

Dummy books

The first booklet is with a red line going through the middle and the date in the centre. I have to admit that it looks a bit like Japanese flag maybe because it is a red circle on a white background. The left side represents rebels and the right Gaddafi’s regime. The text sits on the line but goes in two opposite sides. So they can’t be read to-gether you would have to rotate the page. So it can be read both ways.

The second booklet is cut in half in side to divide a page into two sections. So it is like two books inside one. One half is for the rebels and the other represents regime so they could be read separately or together.

The third version is the most simple one but I think works the best. Here is just text going through the middle of the book. If presents the concept of turning the page round to read what is written on the other side. It represent two opposite side of the conflict.

This are three very rough dummy books I have made to see how the format and layout would work.

This is my final concept for the book layout. There is an invisible horizontal line going through the middle of the book on which is the top line of the x height of the text. Text representing rebels goes one way and the regimes side goes the opposite way. So to read one you have to turn the book round. What means that there is no beginning or end of the book. Each side of the publica-tion can be read separately or together. So the book has two covers. After an one to one meeting with Mike he suggested I show the invisible line that goes through the book on the cover so it would be more clear and visible once you open the book.

Final layout

Sketch mock up

Those are some sketches of how my publication would look like and work. As it will have two covers it also has to have two introduction pages from each side. One should explain the concept of the book and the other how it is made, what fonts have been used etc. Each spread will show one day of the conflict presented by both sides. The text would show the difference of opinion of two sides. Despite their differences they still meet in the mid-dle of each spread. It represents clashes between the rebels and regime.

Here is an example of a spread and how it works. For the regime’s side I have chosen to use a serif font because it represents history, tradition and authority. Whereas the typeface for the rebels is sans serif, because it is some-thing fresh, new and opposite to serif. Another idea I had is to use a serif font from 1969 this is when Gaddafi got power and a sans serif font from 2011 when the uprising begun. But unfortunately I haven’t found any right font from 1969.

Finaloutcom

e

Finaloutcom

e

III

Here is my final publication. It is designed to be read both ways as you can see below it has two covers. On the right are shown first pages of each side. The covers are pretty much the same but inverted. Which shows that there is one problem but two different sides.

The inspiration for the covers was a time line inside the publication. The colour white represents something innocent like peaceful demonstrations against Gaddafi and red a bloody war they transformed into.

Here you can see how the book works. There is a time line going through every spread. The short lines show the days and the longer the weeks. Whereas the red line moves through the time line telling where in time the events happen. As you can see from the smaller images below, the red line moves from the top of the publication which is the beginning of the Libyan conflict till the bottom. This book has no ending because the conflict is still going on.

Here is an example of an empty page which means that on this day noth-ing happened. As my aim was to show each day of the conflict I have left some pages blank. I believe that when there is nothing said it means something.

In addition to my publication I have designed a bookmark which represents the intervention of the western world into Libyan conflict. What makes it the third side in the conflict. I have chosen to represent the intervention by a bookmark because just as the Western world intervenes into Libya the book-mark intervenes in the book and its pages. I have designed it to look like a bomb because firstly the intervention and the no-fly zone

was to stop Gaddafi’s army to bombard the people from the sky and secondly because the coalition bombards Gaddafi’s tanks on the ground. On one side of the book-mark is written ‘no-fly zone’ and on the other side ‘Arab League and UN’ so who decided to intervene. What is more when the bookmark is inside the book you can see only the part of it which looks like an arrow and says ‘you have stopped reading here’.

Mon, 21 Mar 2011

‘Libyans will never welcome America or the Europeans, they will never

here in Libya. We will not leave our land and we will liberate it.’

Mon, 21 Mar 2011

‘People will rise up against this evil man now they see he cannot get away with terrorising people. We accept we could not have done this without foreign help, especially from the French, and we are very grateful. But... there must be a Libyan end to this.’

Captain Fayyad Bakri

one day

current day

ligatures �xed kerning

quotation mark moved out of paragraph line

thickness of seriffont: ITC Lubalin Medium 11/16pt

font: Helvetica Neue Light and Light Italic 10/14pt

4 columns text areafont: Times Regular 11/14pt

font: Times Italic 11pt

one week

Instructions

The grid – how it works and what it means.

Here you can see how I constructed the grid for my publication and how to take the most of it. I don’t think much explanation is needed because it speaks for itself.

Mon, 21 Mar 2011

‘Libyans will never welcome America or the Europeans, they will never

here in Libya. We will not leave our land and we will liberate it.’

Mon, 21 Mar 2011

‘People will rise up against this evil man now they see he cannot get away with terrorising people. We accept we could not have done this without foreign help, especially from the French, and we are very grateful. But... there must be a Libyan end to this.’

Captain Fayyad Bakri

one day

current day

ligatures �xed kerning

quotation mark moved out of paragraph line

thickness of seriffont: ITC Lubalin Medium 11/16pt

font: Helvetica Neue Light and Light Italic 10/14pt

4 columns text areafont: Times Regular 11/14pt

font: Times Italic 11pt

one week

Here is a little demonstration of how typography works in my publication. Magenta represents the rebels and is set in Helvetica Neue Light 10/14 pt whereas cyan the regime is set in Times 11/14pt. Times is set in a bit bigger size so it would have the same x-height as Helvetica which you can see below.

The devil is in the detail

Typography

Evaluation

I have enjoyed doing this project. Although I felt it lasted a bit too long and my energy and passion for it finished before the dead-line. I felt that my subject was a bit difficult because I could not plan everything until the last moment because I was dependent on current affairs in Middle East and I was also waiting for the Libyan conflict to be resolved. But unfortunately it is still going on so my FMP has no ending. On the other hand I en-joyed the subject of my FMP, it put me into a routine of daily reading and taking notes from different media for my research. This helped me to be organised and be on truck with work, research and development.

Although I have faced some technical prob-lems like printing. My very first idea was to screen print my publication but after creating a timetable I have realised that it is not pos-sible in the amount of time I had. My final idea was to make a publication that would look like a newspaper but unfortunately newsprint paper was too thin to go through a printer so

I had to use other kind of paper (thicker than I planned). Therefore my publication is much thicker than it was supposed to be and is not a newspaper nor a book.

The paper I have used was to thin for a cover (it has ripped straight after printing) so I could not have a cover like a newspaper. But I also didn’t think that typical hardback cover would suit my publication because it is not a book but rather a journal, something between a newspaper and a book. So the cover is also something in between a hardback cover and newspaper cover. Over all I am happy with my final outcome although I have printed it later than I planned so I could not resolve the problem of the thickness of the paper. Due to which I had to change the cover of the publication. I hope to reprint it with an ending when the conflict in Libya will be finished.