"Who are we, really?
Why are we different?
Why am I weird? Oh, but am I actually weird?
What makes me so different from others?"
Personality Types is a book that inspired by a novel of Martin Suter, “The Last Weydnfeldt". The novels introduced several characters uncommon quirks and obsessions.
In this book, we explore the “weirdness/quirk” of our personalities that we all had, especially personality that are usually completely hidden from the society that called as, The Shadow.
This book begins with an idea of combining the meaning of personality types from psychology and graphic design term.
In psychology, personality type is a bunch of personality traits that shaped and categorized from people’s mind, nature, energy, and tactics. (Carl Jung and Myers Briggs) However, in graphic design, personality types is an idea that typeface has its own personality that express mood and feeling, like people. From these two term, typeface and psychology theory are being put together as a way to express the personality.
Rorschach inkblots are used as a supporting graphic elements in the book to express the personality and also to make it visually appealing. For inkblots, there are 50 ink patterns that were made for this editorial design and only several are chosen to represent a certain personality. These images above are the chosen ones that are appealing and less abstract for audience to relate to.
Every personality traits had its own typeface that represent the personality; some is complicated, some is heavy, or maybe too soft, and too simple. For example, introvert is known to be very individual and private because of that a low case typeface in between page spread treatment is used to express the personality.
The Shadow (Hidden Personality): Carls Jung stated that our self is divided between the ego and the shadow because our culture insists that we behave in a particular manner (persona).
The ego is what we are and know about consciously.
The shadow is that part of us we fail to see or know.
Repressed, soft, and sometimes almost unknown personality is represent by the velvet black paper as a shadow of every personality traits from the beginning of the book, furthermore, braille is a representation of The Shadow in typographic manner for audience to feel instead of read.
The main objective of this editorial is to bring awareness to young individual that "normal" does not really exist and indefinite. Each of us have our own ego and shadow, but The Shadow is not entirely bad or good.
During the design process, this book is inspired mainly from TED talks of Brian R. Little about The Puzzle of Personality who also helped me to conclude the overall idea and concept of this book:
“So, are we just a bunch of traits? No, we’re not.
Remember, you’re like some other people and like no other person. How about that idiosyncratic you?
As Elizabeth or as George, you may share your extroversion or your neurotic-ism but are there some distinctively
Elizabethan features of your behavior, or Georgian of yours, that make us understand you better than just
a bunch of traits? That make us love you? Not just because you’re a certain type of person. What are these free traits?
They’re where we enact a script in order to advance a core project in our lives and they are what matters.
As Elizabeth or as George, you may share your extroversion or your neurotic-ism but are there some distinctively
Elizabethan features of your behavior, or Georgian of yours, that make us understand you better than just
a bunch of traits? That make us love you? Not just because you’re a certain type of person. What are these free traits?
They’re where we enact a script in order to advance a core project in our lives and they are what matters.
Don’t ask people what type you are; ask them,
“What are your core projects in your life?
