Communication Design School of Design
Bea Woolner
Playful, colourful exploration is at the core of my practice. Although I specialised in Graphic Design, I focus on taking a multi-disciplinary approach to my work. I enjoy working both digitally and analogue, finding great enjoyment in process led briefs, allowing for exploration in the process of making. This year has allowed me to explore my personal interests through more traditional graphic design outcomes such as book binding, type design and type setting, but also allowed myself to think about outcomes more unconventionally, tying in illustrative and printmaking work through branding and music design.
Caseroom Playlist – Record Cover Design
The Caseroom Playlist features 5 gatefold record cover designs, encapsulating nearly eight hours worth of music curated from a collaborative Communication Design playlist. The project serves as a time capsule for the year, representing the creative space as a whole rather than the music itself. The term ‘remixing’ aptly describes my approach, which by definition is to combine and edit existing materials to produce something new, nicely tying in with the musical connotations of the term. Working as a reaction to the environment informed my printmaking process, involving the users of the room within my decision making.
Featuring prints made on the automatic rollers, risograph collaging, letter press and typewritten material, printed on 350gsm silk paper.
Project Links
Picnic Press Branding
Logo and Identity for Picnic Press, a publication press set up by Nick Tindale. The ‘Double P’ logo is derived from a squiggle – after a correlation was found between drawn grass and a spiral bound book. The logo works modularly, and can be extended in anyway the press sees fit, to then be applied over socials as a categorisation method.
A Noble & Absurd Understanding: An Insight into the Dog Bark Park Inn
A collaborative project with Maya Howard.
We used this large B2 leaflet as an insight into kitschy American culture. We wanted to explore how Americana is focused around the land of the free, where bigger is better through the use of the Dog Bark Park Inn, a wooden, dog shaped AirBnB in Idaho. Features Dog is God, an essay by Daniel Jeffries, photo collage and a B2 Tripadvisor reviews poster.
Et ‘Ampersand’ Book Design
‘Et’ is a tall, informational format book containing essays, poetry and interviews surrounding ampersands. I feel as though ampersands are a very misunderstood character, so wanted to give it justice. It was important to represent the symbol’s connectivity through material use, featuring japanese style stitch binding, highlighting poet Donnalyn Xu’s quote “The ampersand began as a character formed through two letters joined together, also known as a ligature. Another definition for ligature is the act of binding, or the thread used to stitch a blood vessel.” The use of french fold with see-through paper further accentuates this idea of the symbol’s joining qualities, connecting one page to the next. It is printed in gold riso, and features hot foiled detailing on the covers.
Body Font
I took an unconventional approach when designing Body Font, basing it off of a speedy, early morning visit to the doctors, just to get quickly turned away to get told I have slightly wonky ribs. The outcome is a geometric sans serif with humanistic features, designed to feel as though something is slightly off. The short descenders and tall ascenders are based off the proportions of my body. I chose to mimic recognisable forms typically found in a doctors office to showcase the type, with the purpose of causing anxiety within the viewer as the ephemera doesn’t feel entirely genuine.
