THE NIDA LIGHTHOUSE
This was my final degree show project for my Graphic Design course in Staffordshire University.
We were encouraged by our lecturers to pick a brief from given Graphic Design competitions. From the 4 options that I liked I ended up picking "Lighthouses of the World" - a brief from ISTD (International Society of Typographic Designers)
The brief:
Conduct a rigorous investigation of the lighthouse(s) in your region/country and uncover their compelling stories. From your research establish a narrative that appropriately celebrates/commemorates/honours your chosen building(s).
The reasoning:
Originally from Lithuania, I moved to the United Kingdom to pursue my studies. Everything was new to me: the country, culture, language and much more. As time went by I realised that a lot of people don't know much about my home country if anything at all.
Nida is a resort town in Lithuania, the administrative centre of Neringa municipality. Located on the Curonian Spit between the Curonian Lagoon and the Baltic Sea, it is the westernmost point of Lithuania and the Baltic states, close to the border with the Russian Kaliningrad Oblast exclave.
Nida is a place that me and my family visit every year, it has a lot of sentimental value to me and because of the lighthouse that guards the area I decided to make my final project about it and familiarise others with this humble yet incredibly beautiful place.
The idea:
This project was created for the degree show as a final piece of my journey in the Graphic Design course in Staffordshire University, meaning it had to be a physical piece.
I decided to create a papercut lightbox portraying the Nida Lighthouse and a leaflet spread, with information about the lighthouse and Nida itself, to accompany the box.
THE LOGO DESIGN
For the main logo I replaced both "I" letters to look like a lighthouse, another touch was making the gap of the letter "A" to resemble a ship that's being guided by it.
PAPERCUT LIGHTBOX CREATION
After buying all materials I printed my layers on sheets of A4 paper and stuck them together to begin tracing them onto the 160 gsm A3 paper which I was using to layer inside the box. I did this instead of printing on A3 because the size of my frame is slightly smaller than A3, but all the paper layers were easily adjusted with measuring and cutting it down to the right size.
I used a light up board so that I’d be able to trace my illustrations onto the correct paper more easily.
After tracing all of the layers I began hand-cutting everything out with a scalpel using a 10A blade.
I used a 3mm thick foamboard to cut out 1cm wide sticks, measured to the width and height of the layers, and used double-sided tape to stick them on each side of each layer.
I purchased a 2m strip of LED lights which are self-adhesive, cuttable and with an USB adapter. At first, I considered cutting it and only having one strip of light going horizontally in the middle of the back to make an effect of a gradient coming from the center, however considering the Degree Show is going to be well lit, the brighter the lights – the better, so I decided to lay it out in a snake pattern and use up the whole 2m strip.
I also cut out a little piece of the back out so the LED strip can go out and be comfortably connected to a power source.
There was also an empty space in the box after all the layers were in, which is why I stuck wider pieces of the same foamboard together and onto the back so it would press up against all the layers and not allow the back with the LEDs to fall in and touch the paper layers.
FINAL OUTCOME
THE NIDA LIGHTHOUSE SPREAD
