SKETCHBOOK
Following all the throughout research I did for the second term’s project “Chimera”, regarding shadows and visual metaphor, I realised that I couldn’t at the time find a way to progress it. After some struggling in order to find a subject to use all the research that I did and not start from the very beginning again, I came across one incident that reminded me of fears and phobias. I was in an island as part of quarantine and I was taking a night walk close the sea, when I stumbled across a huge amount of cockroaches. I was never really afraid of them, more disgusted I’d say. But the numbers were unreal. While taking my leave from the spot, the idea that an insect so small made me nervous stuck in my head. How many phobias are there in the world, and people are legitimately terrified of things; nothing close to my experience. I started talking to family members and asking them about their fears and phobias and I was startled. I had no idea that my own family (cousins, uncles,aunts) had these phobias. Therefore I asked my friends about it as well. I got some great information. None of them had any traumatic experiences regarding their phobias. All of them were phobias that didn’t know why, but had them. Galeophobia, dentophobia, alektorophobia, nyctophobia, thalassophobia were only some of them.
Started researching and firstly I found some graphs. That’s when I thought to create my own questionnaire, since on the one hand, I couldn’t be 100% sure about the findings and one the other hand it felt better to have done my own questionnaire and research about it. The people that ended up taking part were 153. They had to answer a 4 questions form, which was shared thought facebook and reddit. According to those results, from the 153 participants, 78,4% responded that they have a phobia whilst 21.6% claimed they do not. Only 1 person have taken actions in order to “fight” their phobias and after 10 years of CBT they are in full control of their previous
phobias. That was a big surprise and it is “translated” into, that even people that have phobias they either do not take them very seriously, or they are too afraid to deal with the source of the problem, that could be a traumatic experience or a result of an unreasonable persistent fear. On the last question, about the intensity of the feelings, people get when they engage with their fears, 116 people chose over 5 on the scale 1-10, while 65 of them chose 8+ . By reading these results, in addition to their feelings and experiences in the questionnaire, it made it clear that awareness about that type of anxiety disorder should be risen.
The one I found online
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The one i made after the results of the questionnaire
While I was waiting for the results and i was researching further into the matter of phobias, I came across a book of Reid Wilson “Don’t Panic” that made me realise a couple of things. Addtionally, German expressionism, suspense and fear are almost interconnected so all my previous research that was done on project proposal was still standing. Furthermore, I realised that all phobias have a Greek origin. That drove me to etymology and also some ancient greek philosophers. Plato’s Allegory of the cave seemed very well connected to my project. The use of the shadows to represent the unreal but real for some people and the new reality these people created through shadows was exactly what i was looking for. Because of this excerpt of Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, the idea of portrating people’s phobias through shadows came to mind. The meaning of the whole allegory is not that, and has to do with the acceptance of progression and mental enlightenment, as well as the responsibility of the enlightened to inform and educate the masses. Like these prisoners though, sufferers of phobias are chained down to a “thought” of an object or an idea, that doesn’t let them see the actual picture. They are terrified by the “shadow” of the thing they are afraid of. Whatever the reason may be, a traumatic experience or a childhood trauma, a sense of survival embedded in our DNA or even a persistent unreasonable fear that was aggrandised into a phobia, the outcome remains the same. Many people are “imprisoned” by their own phobias, suffering from more than a mere anxiety disorder that makes their reality difficult, if not cruel in some situations.
“Imagine, human figures living in an underground cave. They have been there since their birth and had their hands, legs and heads chained so they can not move and they can only see before them, being prevented by the chains to turn their heads around. The only thing that exists in front of them is the end of the cave. Above and behind them, a fire is blazing to distance. They only see their shadows, which the fire throws on the opposite wall of the cave; for how could they see anything but their shadows, if they were never allowed to move their heads. Between the fire and the prisoners, there is a raised way and a low wall goes along the way like a screen which marionette players have in front of them, over which they show the puppets. Men are passing along the wall carrying all sorts of vessels, statues and figures of animals made of wood, stone and various materials, which appear over the wall. Some of them are talking, others silent. The objects which are being carried in like manner, they would only see the shadows. If they were able to converse with one another, they would supposedly name what was actually before them. Let’s suppose further that the prison had an echo which came from the other side, they would think that when one of the passers-by spoke, the voice which they heard came from the passing shadow. To them, the truth would be literally nothing but the shadows of the images.�
From the beginning of the master course I wanted to delve into posters, typography and publications. Since the campaign will have as a goal, to inform and raise awareness of the problems that many people face everyday, posters would be a great way and it would also be something that I will enjoy making. I wanted to make everyone understand, that all phobias are real, and when a person manages to share about it, they should be dealt with respect and dignity. The choice of mainly bus stops and stations in general to put the posters was done because it is easier for someone to engage and read the poster while waiting. When for example in a shopping center, even though colours and imagery can trigger a person’s interest, people rarely pay attention to them because of the huge amount of information around them. The publication can serve as an addition, when someone is interested in it and wants to delve more into it, as well as inform people in other countries/ towns that the poster campaign will not take place. Another idea could be a trifold brochure but print is something that people tend not to take these days. Also, brochures is something that people avoid most of the times because they think it has to do with an advertisment of a product or a course. The brochures end up in the trash without people even taking a glance on it. So firstly seemed like a bad way to communicate and secondly a bad environmental choice since it would just add up to trash and the excessive paper production without any impact on the cause.
Because of that I did some research to find what other creative ways people to talk about phobias and anxiety disorders. Publication, posters and illustration, but the use of shadows as a visual metaphor for phobias was not done.
I started making my own posters. Thalassophobia, phobia of the sea and sea creatures is the first i started experimenting on. With typography, imagery and layout. The bottom of the ocean and the shapes that light forms on the sand was abstract enough for the poster. I used black and white since i was working with shadows, to make my posters, but i also wanted them to be more dramatic, emphasise more on the constrast, and add that german expressionism “feel”. I spent a lot of time trying layouts and what kind of fonts I would be using keeping in mind that they had to be consistent in all my posters. After Hans’ feedback I tried colours as well and stuck to it.
The typography was a challenge. Helvetica had the simpicity I wanted but it was very generic. So with helvetica as a base I startted playing around to create custom type for every phobia. Add some illustrative elements to my typography. That’s when i chose to keep the greek origin in every poster. I really wanted my posters to have some information that the image would capture people’s glace and then they would also read the text. I don’t want it to be very long since not many people these days spend time reading posters. Their subconsious keeps the image. If that is the case with my posters, at least i wanted the imagery to be nice in public. Instead of having a general public filled with advertisement and excessive amount of information, these posters could keep it simple. With all these in mind i continued making posters and custom typography.
I moved to pyrophobia and started researching a way to make it work but in the end i chose to leave it there since it was hard to capture a shadow of a light source. I did some more experiments with imagery and phobias that didn’t keep.
Hemoophobia
Aerophobia
Chemoophobia
I started getting the hang of it and started to have some nice outcomes. Each poster needed something new in order to avoid making them dull after a while, but still needed to be consistent.
I really wanted to use the font that i made for #staysafestaysane but i ended up going on a more illustrative way. I did manage to finish my Covid-19 serif sans font though. My first custom made full font.
Homichlophobia Phobia of the mist
Homichli & Phobia Homichli ɔ.ˈmi.xli ομίχλη = mist
Mist is a phenomenon caused by small droplets of water suspended in air. It can be considered a type of low-lying cloud usually resembling stratus, and is heavily influenced by nearby bodies of water, topography, and wind conditions. In the U.K., the definition of fog is visibility less than 100 m (330 ft), while for pilots the distance is 1 km. Otherwise, it is known as mist. Also known as nebulaphobia, from Latin nebula, that means cloud. People tend to fear the fog because it is hard to drive in and can lead to an accident. Some others may fear supernatural entities like ghosts or magical creatures hiding behind the curtain of fog. Sufferers would not go out when it is foggy, and some would not driving at all even though it is clear because they think that fog may suddenly roll in.
With Monophobia I had a lot to play with. I tried different fonts. Did some scanner experiments, lot’s of imagery.
I ended up using a more abstract one with a more clean type and keep this effect for another phobia.
At this point I was trying more stuff and trying to be different in both layout and colors. i started being really playful and I realised that i was losing sight of phobias. So that got me back to a more simple and “serious� colour palette.
Even though I really liked the more illustrative approach to the left poster and the typography was really strong, at the same time it was very different from all the other posters. It didn’t have any consistency. Even though i really liked it as a poster, I couldn’t include it in the project. It wasn’t only the consistency but it didn’t have the aspect of shadow either. I left ophifdiophobia for later and then i found an image that i was happy with.
I experimented with different type sizes. I wanted to get a bit away from “slicing� the poster in fourths.
From the printing workshops we did during June, I was able to get some very nice abstract monoprints that I later scanned and used for this phobia. The phobia of wrinkles. it was a good excuse to play with some “texture�.
More experimentation with scanned typography. Nyctophobia is the phobia of darkness. That was the phobia that i wanted to work on the most since i had so many information and inspirations from german expressionism films. In the end I kept it very simple and abstract.
In order to create these posters and continue on the publication I had to look on various artists and designers. I had a pretty big list of inspiration from my project proposal but i added more. I had to research more in terms of typography and imagery as well as the “marriage” of those two, in my work instead of animation and illustration that I mostly had in the proposal.
Designers/ Artists: • Corita Kent • Otl Aicher • Printing a Revolution: The Posters of Paris ’68 • Riddell Alan • Milton Glaser • April Greiman • Wolfgang Weingart • Armin Hofmann • Herbert Matter • El Lissitzky • Vladimir Mayakovsky • Piet Zwart • Koloman Moser • Toulouse Lautrec • Cassandre • Lucian Bernhard
Instagram: • • • • • • • • • • • • •
rafael.bernardo cheersjack david_wise lucas.grassmay plusx_design plusmurs radktt __joanie xtianmiller onthecornerrecords pentagramdesign danfherle linuslohoff
• • • • • •
leon.noyav jbgraphicdesign carlosdelpino viktorhstudios gingervic hybriddesignsf
Some more books: • Grid Systems - Josef Muller-Brockmann • Type on screen - Ellen Lupton
These were some of the people I used as a guideline to develope my own publication and posters. I took elements from them in order to get both inspired and learn. From both freelancer and studios. Past and present of graphic design.From chaotic and hectic to very well placed and calculated choices.
I started by designing the cover of the publication. I wanted to find a way to make an image that would have even a small connection with shadows, at least in my eyes. I came up with this blurry typography. I included color, because I introduced colors to the shadows in the publication as well. Used helvetica again as a base to keep the theme.
I kept the same imagery and custom typography for each phobia, that I used in the posters. But in the publication I tried to be more experimental. More hectic with the placements instead of keeping it very clean as I did with the posters. Therefore I included feelings that people shared in the questionnaire about each phobia.
Lastly I had to create some mockups for the posters as well, so people would be able to understand better how they would stand in public, since the whole campaign is supposed to be in public space.
Since I had some time left until the hand-in I did some experimentation with adobe XD and prototyping. I thought It would be a nice way to boost the whole campaign with the help of an application. People tend to be a lot on their phones and this thing becomes more and more of an issue. For that reason and because I didn’t have so much time left in order to create a good finished app, I dropped the idea. We spend so much time on our phones and tablets, that we forget to take a look around. That was the main factor that drove me to stop designing the app. The campaign was to raise awareness about phobias. It would contradict itself if it wasn’t letting people be aware of their surroundings first.
Link to publication
Loading screeen
Main menu / Home screen
General Infoscreen
“Game” screen
List screen
Share screen Phobia screen
Fin.