Poetry through type and photos
This book walks through a visual experience using typography and photography to express the story and emotions in a long poem.
Hardcover book published with dust jacket.
Stitching together nostalgia
Selected poetry
The poem selected for this work is "Faces in the City" by James Kavanaugh. I discovered the piece in randomly flipping through older anthologies and limited poetry books in the university campus library. The poem describes about the different type of people that make up the community, only to find that the personality of those around us in the city are reflected in our own eyes. It is filled with two viewpoints of the topic, with the tone reflecting a bit of melancholy but also of hope.
Connecting text with the eyes was a main focus in the design of each spread.
Photos are all original pictures of strangers I came across in the city, editited with split-tone coloring.
Visual expressions
In reflection of the messages in the poem, I took a series of photos was taken of random strangers I came across in San José. The portraits were all treated with split-toning color editing to bring out the evocative mood. Typography was set to reflect the rhythmic ebb and flow infused in the words' cadence. While I took inspiration from visual poetry, I strayed from taking literal shape of the text. Each spread was made through meticulous selection of edited portraits and type-setting of each stanza to express deeper emotions within the poem.
Typography set with different dynamics to represent the poem's dynamic in phrasing and stanza.
True to the city's demographic, diverse range in age, ethnicity and profession ended up being represented in the book.
Each spread had a unique photo with text that echoed the poem phrasing.
