M2 // Project #12
The System
Adventures in Post-modernism
MM // The System
The System
Inspiration
I have always been fascinated with true stories of government espionage, techniques in tradecraft and modern U.S. military surveillance capabilities. This particular subject has always seemed to endlessly captivate me. This project, The System, was created with the love of this subject in mind and was directly inspired by Laura Poitras’s 2014 documentary, Citizen Four, which was based on NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden. It covers a wide array publicly known surveillance programs exposed in the wake of the Snowden leaks.
Scope
The System (or TH3 SY5T3M) was designed to be a visually schizophrenic open-ended coffee table book, utilizing my own personal experimentation with post-modern typography. The book itself is hand-bound using a technique proposed in The Vignelli Canon and incorporates personal artwork including macro photography [cover image] and the use of layered transparency effects.
Deliverable
Handmade Custom Bound Book
Tags
MM // The System
Layout
Editorial Design
I have always been fascinated with true stories of government espionage, techniques in tradecraft and modern U.S. military surveillance capabilities. This particular subject has always seemed to endlessly captivate me. This project, The System, was created with the love of this subject in mind and was directly inspired by Laura Poitras’s 2014 documentary, Citizen Four, which was based on NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden. It covers a wide array publicly known surveillance programs exposed in the wake of the Snowden leaks.
1920 x 1080
MM // The System
Title Page
Inspiration
The Kyle Coopers title sequence to Seven heavily inspired the overall direction of the System. Watching it I noticed that the book being created used different types of semi opaque paper like vellum and, if you watch closely, seemed to use printed transparencies. I decided that using transparency for the title page would make quite an impression on the viewer. The viewer is greeted with a field of random letters but by turning the page subtracts the useless data and reveals the hidden message within the code.
1920 x 1080
One advantage of the “Vignelli Sandwhich”, is the ability to lay completely flat making deep gutters unesscessary. / 1920 x 1080
MM // The System
Cover
Inspiration
During this time I became oddly interested in phone photography and experimented with a cheap Iphone macro lens I found at Frys. I was pleasantly surprised at just how well it worked. The image, a slightly curled one-hundred dollar bill, allowed me to use the lens depth of field to emphasize Benjamin Franklin’s eyes. The image is vertically cropped tightly to give the impression of Ben, symbol of the government, peeking in on the viewer.
11×17. 1/16 bleed. 300 dpi.