Context & Brief
The Assignment: build an image using only text. For this project I was to choose a passage of text from a book I felt I had a strong emotional connection to and use it to create an image in InDesign entirely out of text using letter shapes and letterforms.
Specifications & Project Elements
I created at least 12 thumbnails for my concept and 1 annotated rough draft that was chosen amongst the initial sketches. Next, I developed an image using text that was to show strong concept development, interesting use of letter shapes, and that told the story of my chosen book visually in picture form.
First Stage - Initial Sketches: Process
The process of my design started with thinking of main themes in the book, from the importance of the life raft, to the life-bringing fish, to the impact Richard Parker had on Pi’s life. I initially drew an empty floating life raft to symbolize Pi’s loneliness contrasted with his will to live by also having a fish swimming in the water. From there I experimented with different ways I could express Pi’s connection with Richard Parker by having a tiger’s roaring face faded behind waves of the water complemented with passages from the book describing Pi’s fear for life and being orphaned.
Second Stage - Create an Annotated Rough Draft
Once I chose which design I wanted to do, I sketched a full page draft that included ideas of what I wanted the final version to look like, including colours and fonts.
Third Stage - Create in InDesign
I used an abstract line art image of a tiger's more neutral-looking face because it was more abstract that used the closure principle to create a tiger’s more neutral expression, so it had the possibility of having parts adjusted or changed if needed. I initially brought the image into illustrator and live traced it to make it into vector form, and then pasted it into InDesign so that I could play around with the curves and adjust parts that I wanted for the text. A main part that I adjusted was the whiskers to make them look more uneven, as well as adjusting the colors of the text to make the words look more like watery constellations.
Final Result
The final intent of the project was to show a combination of all these ideas, by having passages about how fear can overtake your being, yet having a fierce will to live, intertwined with phrases from when Pi revels at the majesty of nature. Having the tiger’s face be more abstracted among the stars almost as its own constellation reflecting over the ocean waves reflects how Richard Parker was on the top of Pi’s thoughts and priorities for the duration of his journey for survival – be it in a positive or negative way, and looking at nature was a constant reminder.