Object Study
Brief: The goal was to practice extracting meaning—cultural, social, historical, and so on—from an object, through research / written analysis, constructing images, and creating compositions that combine text and images in ways that articulate key messages and concepts. I chose the pill organizer and looked at the implications that come with the use of the tool. My key takeaways with research were: the stigma that surrounds the usage is evident, but the pill organizer can also be seen as a creature comfort.
Strategy: The process of this project was intense: it started with writing an essay talking about the connotative and denotative meanings with the pill organizer, which led to mind mapping. Then I photographed my pill organizer and experimented with type on the images. The dark background helped convey the melancholy and isolating feeling associated with using a pill organizer. I used sporting grotesque because it feels personal and it had irregularities that made it feel human. I chose to warp some text, because people have adistorted view of users of the object, leading to preconceived biases. Another design choice I used was the element of repeating text. I used this technique more than once because the process of using a pill organizer is a repetitive task. Personifying the pill organizer was crucial, so I made text blur and warp to give the feeling of the frustration behind the usage of the pill organizer.
Takeaways: I ran into challenges when trying to convey the message I wanted to talk about, but the essay helped define the messaging I wanted to illustrate in the images. I also learned that you can manipulate typography in many different ways: and the manipulation can help convey a message. ***
