UNSEEN, SEEN Project #3
Katie Ehrlich
PROJECT SUMMARY For this project, we had to choose a podcast episode, which is inherently non-visual, and design a book using its transcript. The goal was to successfully communicate the topic of the episode through visual design. I used episode 626 of Your American Life entitled “White Haze.” The episode follows a mens club called “The Proud Boys.” The podcast’s summary describe it best: “Right-wing groups like the Proud Boys say they have no tolerance for racism or white supremacist groups. Their leader Gavin McInnes disavowed the white nationalist rally in Charlottesville. But the Proud Boys believe “the West is the best,” which, one of them points out, is not such a big jump from “whites are best.” And one of the Proud Boys organized the Charlottesville rally. (The group now claims he was a spy.) What should we make of groups like this?
EXPLORATION Mood board
After selecting my podcast episode, I started finding visuals around the concept of “White Haze.� I wanted to visualize the sense of their clouded logic and baseless conclusions. I also wanted to use an only black and white color palette, and explored using just white but there were no printing facilities nearby that would print white in low quantities. I also researched different types of transparent materials to print on to enforce that clouded effect.
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SKETCHING Thumbnailing layouts
My concept for the layout and grid system of this book was to create a sense of floating. Just like the Proud Boys’ ideology seems baseless, I wanted the columns of text to be unanchored. My sketches focused on how to create a sense of floating with the text box shapes rather than on specific design elements. I also decided against using photographs or imagery at all. I wanted the focus to be on their words and thoughts and the problems behind them, not what they look like. Heavy pull-quotes would be the visual interest instead of images.
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FIRST DRAFTS Digitizing the sketches
I began building my designs in InDesign, experimenting with grids, typefaces, and gray tones. I tried having the columns be different widths, but it didn’t look as nice as I hoped and seemed random. I originally had this light, rounded typeface as the pull-quote, which fit with my floaty vibe. But my professor Chrissi pointed out to me that the typeface didn’t seem to match the speakers, which were Proud Boys. I ended up switching to Bodoni Extra Bold, a much heavier more masculine typeface. (My type experiments are on the next page.) I also played with layering the pull-quote and having it faded to make its meaning hard to read. But that didn’t truly convey my disagreement with the group enough. I needed to reveal my truth in response to theirs more clearly.
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COLOR STUDIES Revealing my voice
The first way I tried to visualize the revealing of my response to their quotes was inspired by Sagmeister’s famous dog book cover. I used blue lighting gels to uncover how I think the quote should be edited. I planned to use this treatment only on the cover, but then use the system of the blue inside the book to communicate that it was my voice. Blue I felt was the best color to add to the cloudy tone, but I was sad to stray from the original black and white only concept.
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CHANGING THE TYPE Moving on from the gel idea
I received the critique that the color gel was copying Sagmeister to much and that I should try something else. So I kept this idea of replacing their words with my own, but wanted my words to be a secondary read instead of a primary one, so they were still being “revealed.� I ended up keeping the blue at first because I liked how it looked, but ended up dropping it because it was no longer necessary for my concept. The other big change I made at this stage was deciding to use a French fold in my binding. This would actually allow me to print on the back and created a nice edge when reading the book. This meant I could no longer have text crossing the gutter, so I had to relayout many pages.
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PRINTING Testing out transparent paper
I first tried printing my book on 25lb tracing paper. Each page had about a 50% chance of being eaten by the printer and coming out a crumpled mess, which I knew wasn’t feasible. But I was loving the way the different layers were coming through the fog of the paper. As you moved through the book, different layers would appear and disappear as if you were walking through a cloud, which was perfect. I printed my responses on the backside of the paper to emphasize the reveal aspect. However, the paper was so see-through that the effect wasn’t obvious. That problem paired with printing issues lead me to explore other paper options. In the end, I used vellum, which was much smoother, didn’t jam the printer, and was more opaque.
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RETHINKING MY VOICE Making my voice more clear
I still felt the way I was showing my opinion wasn’t very effective or aesthetically pleasing. I also felt I needed a third level of type treatment to really complete the spreads. I came up with this idea of crossing out the words I disagreed with instead of just writing my thoughts under them. Then I used that graphic gesture to connect the pull-quote to what I’m calling my “caption.” In that caption I rewrote their quote with what it should really say, bolding the specific words I replaced. This system made my voice a lot more understandable. On first glance, the cross-outs read a lot clearer and more quickly as a disagreement, and looked a lot better. They also added a graphic element to the book, which it definitely needed. To emphasize the haziness of the Proud Boys’ logic once more, I had the pullquotes become more and more transparent as the book progressed.
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SWITCHING TO VELLUM The perfect material
Vellum solved all my printing issues. It was much more obvious that my captions were actually coming from behind, while still looking cloudy. The pages were also thicker, making the whole thing feel nicer and easier to handle. Because of the increase in opaqueness, I actually had to print my captions and lines at 100% black so they would visually appear as about 50% gray on the other side.
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Back 21
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FINAL Final touches & reflection
My last addition was the black sleeve. I felt this was necessary as a protection for the delicate paper if it were put on a table or in a bookshelf. It also was one last way to reinforce that idea of reveal. The black provided a stark contrast to the lightness of the rest of the book, making it seem even more delicate and cloud-like. Overall, the reaction to the book was positive. Most of the critiques I got were that although I was successful in revealing my voice as a secondary read, it was too quiet. People wanted a more aggressive stance visually against the group’s statements. I think I’ll go back and try making the captions larger like on the cover. Another comment I got was that someone had trouble fully understanding who the Proud Boys were and what exactly their point of view was from just a skim. I actually took this as a success intended the book to be a bit confusing. Their ideology is so illogical, and I wanted people to feel that confusion as they read the quotes. I wanted them to feel the discomfort I felt when first hearing these statements. I hoped that desire for more explanation would lead them to actually read the content. This isn’t a coffee table book to flip through, they need to read the content. And once reading, they would discover that there really is no explanation, no sensible way to justify most of these claims. Therefore, I found readers’ frustrationsto be a success in my design, although I’m sure many would argue clarity would have been a better approach.
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