Stuck

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The first step on the way to acceptance and tolerance always starts with knowledge. For my bachelor thesis and final project I decided to deal with the topic of mental illness and its recognition in our society. I created an interactive book that describes the medical and social context of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD). What is going on in the mind of an OCD sufferer? What are compulsions and how do they emerge? How does anxiety affect us? “Stuck” is a project in which the reader not only receives important answers to all those questions, but also gets the opportunity to experience the illness itself through visual and interactive impulses.

The more senses a human uses while grasping information the more likely they will internalise it. This is why the design concept of the book directs the reader to see, feel and actively experience the topic of OCD. Interactive elements, fold-outs, hidden pages and changing paper types help the reader learn about OCD in an exploratory way. The editorial design in black and white symbolises the strict and uncompromising thought process of OCD sufferers. We often struggle to understand things we cannot comprehend with our own imagination. For this reason I decided to use a photo series to represent the external symptoms and hand drawn illustrations to depict the internal symptoms, thoughts and feelings. The minimalistic, embossed softcover and the sterile vacuum packaging capture the common contamination fear that affects OCD sufferers.