ISTD a colourful story:

COLOURWAYS (2022)

In response to the ISTD 2022 brief, A Colourful Story. The brief calls for exploration into the use, meaning and significance of a particular colour.

The colour green has many different associations. Green is widely seen in nature, it’s common in flags and politics, it has an interesting background regarding its symbolism, pigment, and cultural associations throughout history. It’s a sacred colour in Islam, it symbolised wealth and the gentry in Renaissance art, and it was a ‘deathly’ colour in the late 19th century. Green also has its modern associations, to ‘go green’ is to think of environmentalism and sustainability, and green’s psychological effects – the healing power of nature. There are several studies on nature and mental health, as well as theories on green light therapy to be explored and to express green in new ways as well as its perception and impact in different cultures. The aim of this project is to explore the colour green through a series of found articles that have been chosen with the guided themes of lifestyle, history, art and culture, and create a periodical based on that, illustrated with corresponding found imagery. 

The intended audience for this periodical are people who seek fresh content that is communicated in a considered way. They could be a part of the design sector or within the art and/or education industry.

Through the research gathered on the subject of green, the periodical features eight articles under the themes of history, art, culture, and lifestyle. It is a large periodical, that features image and text, as well as using square die cuts to interweave the pages together in a sense, and to follow on the interaction of different greens together throughout the periodical, as well as creating dynamic visuals that support the type. The indented and outdent body text plays into the square grid aspect of the periodical, and is juxtaposed by the loose, large and italicised pull quotes and titles that flow in between the spreads. The gridded die-cuts, mixture of green type and variety in imagery make up a formula that would also allow this to work for different colours.