Awarded Merit in the ISTD 2016 Student Assessment
 
 
Brief
Design a typographic publication in print or digital format that details part of the history of The Nobel Prize. Explore various opportunities to contextualise your subjects and their work e.g. consider biographical, literary, social, cultural and historical reference points to inform visual content and typographic interpretation.

 

Solution
The Nobel Prize is an annual, world wide award presented for outstanding work in physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine, literature, economics, and the promotion of peace. The attention of the publication is on three Nobel Laureates that contributed to the break down of the Soviet Union. The three sections of the publication are based on Boris Pasternack, Literacy Laureate 1958, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Literacy Laureate 1970 and Mikhail Gorbachev, Peace Laureate 1990. 

The Laureates were all connected by their desire to dismantle the USSR so I chose to bind the three sections together. These sections of the book are Coptic bound by orange waxed thread. The Coptic stitch is a non-adhesive, hand-sewn method introduced during the fourth century. I wanted to hand bind my book to imitate the work of the author’s Pasternack and Solzhenitsyn as they would have been hand bound before they were published. Orange was chosen as it is a feature of most Soviet propaganda during Stalin’s reign. Orange is also used to emphasize sections of type in the publication alongside black. The use of the orange and the black and white images represent the dark times people suffered. Each section is to be read independently explaining how each Laurette spoke about the USSR. 

The book utilizes two typefaces throughout the three sections; Bebas by Ryoichi Tsunekawa and Mrs Eaves XL Serif by Zuzana Licko in 2009. Mrs Eaves XL Serif represents a likeness to the typeface used in first edition copies of The Gulag Archipelago. Bebas signifies the bold condensed type used in Soviet Posters throughout the years. The choice of grey and cream stocks are a representation of the dirty and cold conditions that prisoners were forced to endure. The Transparency of the tracing paper used in section 2 and 3 of the book imitate the frosted glass of the huts prisoners were forced to stay in Solzhenitsyns, ‘The Gulag Arhipelago.’ By printing the row of prisoners across the transparent page and folding it back on itself, it really draws attention to the sheer number of prisoners in The Gulag, as it makes it look like there is rows of them.