September – December 2021
Collaborators | Fall 2021 Re-Design Class, Prof. Goffredo Puccetti and Prof. Nizar Habash
Milan-based art consultancy Edixion pushes against the edges of the idea of a book. In the fall of 2021, they asked, “What is an art book when we start by Thinking Digital?” I led a team of fourteen undergraduate students and two professors in answering this question. After weeks of back-and-forth, we ended up with far more questions than answers. We curated our ideas into the dynamic and choral book you see here.
Process
At the start of our process, I was elected to lead one of three small teams tasked with proposing design interventions in response to Edixion. Based on research done by my colleagues, I built an interactive presentation for a cross-platform digital art gallery. Our idea included strategies for building brand recognition through augmented reality pop-up shows. At these environmentally-embedded shows, anyone with the app could engage in Patreon-style support for the artists involved, paying as their means allowed in exchange for copies of the digital pieces. Sustainable NFTs would allow for the allow for copies and originals to be identified and traded at the artist’s discretion.
Together, all teams worked through our ideas and sent an ambitious proposal to our client, who, though willing to go with us into the unknown, reminded us that they wanted a book. We processed the feedback into actionable adjustments. Many still felt uncertain about the direction of the project, so I sent a hastily handwritten revision to everyone.
And they went for it! With a few edits, we agreed on a structure and divided up the work. Somewhere along the way, they elected me to lead the entire project, and I found myself in the strange situation of giving my professors tasks to accomplish.
We put together four small teams to work on different components of the book. I composed the resulting designs into a printable format, shown below. The design was finalized by the team responsible for embedding digital media and interaction.
Contribution
None of this would have been possible without the efforts of our entire team. As the project lead I focused on reducing creative frictions and ensuring quality control by:
- facilitating ideation sessions to ensure alignment on deliverables
- checking in with teams regularly to address any emerging roadblocks
- fielding clarifications on deliverables
- maintaining documentation of deliverable parameters
- re-allocating teammates in response to evolving needs
- combining all the teams’ work into the (almost) final editorial
- recomposing the two-page section header spreads
- applying the grid across all delivered layouts
- editing and expanding all copy for clarity
- writing consistent captions
- requesting redesigns of weak graphics
