Project 5 — Book
Introduction
In this project, we were assigned to make a book containing any content of our choice. I chose to do my final project on feminism. It is for some reason a very controversial topic that a lot of people feel uncomfortable about. Through this book, I wanted to just gently touch upon some of the misconceptions about feminism, and wanted to help people that might be not so familiar with the topic at least understand, even if it’s just on the surface level, what feminism encompasses. I purposely made the book small so that it seems approachable and not intimidating.
Project Process
Initial Sketches
I started out the sketches by thinking of what I deemed the most uncomfortable in the society. These things included how victims of rape incidents get blamed and shamed for having worn clothes that suggested that she was “asking for it”, or how in Korea certain occupations (such as an announcer) have dress codes that require them to wear heels and skirts and makeup, and how some people are chastised for not being “manly” or “feminine”. At first, I was just going to portray them as black and white photos and have certain elements be a specific color in order to emphasize the message. However, an interesting idea was suggested — that I put PVC films in front of the paper so that the colored part can’t be seen, but when it is flipped over, the full picture is revealed. This seemed like a better way to tell the story I wanted to tell, so I decided to go along with that idea.
Digital Iterations
In the initial digital iterations, I had all the pictures lined up on one side of the spread, using fonts seemed to suggest propaganda. I wanted to emphasize the idea that feminism is not violent by using violent fonts to contrast the idea, but some feedback I received suggested that using different fonts would get the idea across better. Also, it was recommended that the placement of the photos and the alignment of the texts were mixed up a bit, instead of just having them all the same style as I had originally designed it. Therefore in the next iteration, I chose a variety of typefaces that capture the multiple dimensions that I hoped this book would portay.
Final Book
The first page just vaguely explains the concept of feminism, and the pages after that tries to show the discrepancy of gender inequality we face today. All of the pictures are black and white, except a specific element that is in color. With the PVC film on, you can’t see the color, but once you flip it, you see the color. The first page, for example, with the green PVC film, it’s just a picture of a guy, but once you flip it, you can see that there is a tear drop on his face. The PVC film represents the state of being of a person, and even without the PVC film, the picture within is the same, just with a different layer. That layer does not change who the person is within — just as a guy crying doesn’t make him any less of a guy that he is. The rest of the pages all highlight the wrongs in the society that we might often pass by without really thinking about, and I hope this book at least got you looking up feminism on google!
