Annamalis Sharp

The objective of this project was to design an object or experience that would teach the user/reader about a particular designer. I had originally picked Laini Abernathy to research as she was the first credited Black female record cover designer but unfortunately only a handful of her work was documented. This turned my attention to the greater art scene she belonged to, which was the Black Arts Movement in Chicago. Influenced heavily by the Black Panthers, BAM acted as the cultural arm of the Black liberation front. The book content is separated into visual artists, writers, organizations, and locations which were pivotal to the movement. The work produced by these artists and organizations is given its own section in which they are organized alphabetically. This encourages the reader to flip back and forth through the document and creates an exploratory experience. This act of discovery is important to the topic, which many-even those from Chicago- may be unaware of.

The goal of this project was to create a set of 12 cards that would each contain a metaphor or analogy for a figure of our choosing. Figure selection was informed by the idea of heroes and villains with the objective of selecting a figure who could serve as an archetype for either role. My figure was the illustrious Elon Musk, who, in spite of the public persona (that of a benevolent genius) he desperately tries to create, is actually just like the rest of the ruling class elites whose main goal is the accumulation of wealth and accolades in the most superficial sense and who could care less about the common good of the people. I researched Elon’s upbringing and his companies; my conclusion was that he enjoys taking credit for other people’s accomplishments while also being overly concerned about his public perception. Musk tries to come off as “not like the other billionaires” and his attempts at showing this boil down to embarrassing interactions on social media where Musk posts old memes and tries to blend in with the youth (all while union-busting and overworking and underpaying his employees). I felt that in light of all this, the best way to portray Musk was with the Y2K aesthetic, where tech gadgetry was beginning to proliferate and the forward-looking aesthetic of tech had not yet been nailed down. I look at this aesthetic as a naive way of thinking about tech, crude and rudimentary, and not entirely well-thought out. We see this in the less than ergonomic asymmetric and weird proportions of gadgets made in bright, plastic colors. This is an analogy for the way Musk looks at his goals in terms of “what is the coolest looking thing I can do right now” without thinking about the wider consequences of these actions. I designed the cards to look like a Y2K gadget with a screen which would “display” information about Elon, with descriptions written by a disgruntled employee on the factory line making sarcastic digs at their boss.

The idea behind this project was to remake John Maeda’s Laws of Simplicity book in a way that felt more aligned with my experience reading it. The Laws of Simplicity is filled with too many acronyms that make Maeda\'s ideas a slog to get through so the redesign was created to make it as arduous to read as possible, while still maintaining some level of legibility. This is a book that disagrees with its author and wastes no opportunity to poke fun at its writer.

The goal of this project was to explore multiple meanings both connotative and denotative of a particular object. I selected wire cutters for the challenge of producing many meanings from an unassuming household object. Through explorations of language along with photographing the cutters in different contexts, I was able to explore several different interpretations of this household object, from its use in trench warfare in the first World War to more provocative language surrounding its use in unsheathing and stripping wire. Though it is a humble object, by exploring these varied meanings I was able to produce an expressive range of photo and type combinations. The result was some images that felt like they were pulled from tool catalogue, and others that made the tool come across as quite provocative.