Dean Thorn
- Branding, Editorial design
Upon reflection, I would say that I am most fond of work that is visually and/or thematically focused, and (perhaps more importantly) I am interested in work that has some kind of conceptual basis. Corporate design projects, at least to me, feel inherently soulless; their qualities informed by statistics and trends. My design approach, if anything, feels more artistic in nature. The juxtaposition of rigid sans-serif typography and textural imagery is of continual interest to me – it features heavily in my work. I find myself invested in typography, editorial (& printed matter more generally), visual identities, and creative direction.
John Clare's Love and Memory Booklet
Inspired by Damon Albarn’s second solo album ‘The Nearer the Fountain, More Pure the Stream Flows’ and based on John Clare’s ‘Love and Memory’ poem, I created this short booklet. Images were combined with a brush-script typeface to evoke loss and decay – two central themes of the poem. Colour images were used to control the pace of the booklet. See my website for a more detailed project commentary.
Future Film Forum Event Material
This university project centred around constructing a suitably versatile, visual identity. More specifically, it needed to work for both large and small formats. My large format deliverable, which I worked on first, was an A3 poster. I spent a considerable amount of time extracting and distilling the key information from the copy provided, which I then assembled typographically. My choice of background image was informed by the cyclical qualities of a camera lens, as it is this which allows the capture of image and film. Over the course of the project, I stripped away the colour and cropped closer and closer to the centre of the lens. Such extreme framing gave the image a grainy quality which – although entirely unintentional – seemed to mimic that of traditional film grain. This effect felt particularly appropriate given the nature of the project, and so I decided to keep it in the final version. In addition to the poster, I designed a folded A4 programme to fulfil the small format deliverable. This programme details the names, times, and locations of the various sessions at the six-day event. I borrowed as many rules and motifs from the poster as possible to ensure visual continuity. This meant keeping typographic differentiation to a minimum and using rules and various sizes of negative space to convey hierarchical relationships. I also borrowed the posters underlying grid to structure the programmes typography.
Formulation Magazine
When tasked with inventing, branding, and designing a magazine, I first reflected on my own approach to graphic design. I thought about the different types of creative work that I consume, their characteristics and why they interest me. This reflection led me to the realisation that I tend (although this will inevitably be an overgeneralisation) to be most fond of work that is visually and thematically focused, and work that has a conceptual basis. Discovering additional information about artwork from the creator (i.e., an interview or written piece) almost always leaves me appreciating the work more than I first did. As such, I decided to fill this imagined magazine with interviews and stories from creatives – specifically graphic designers, photographers, and musicians. See my website for a more detailed project commentary.
Typography & Graphic Communication Department, University of Reading
BA Graphic Communication face to face degree show 2022
