As we were visiting the museum, the New York Times cover of May 24, 2020, which marked the harrowing milestone of 100,000 deaths from Covid-19 in the United States took my attention. In the beginning of 2020, the sudden COVID-19 crisis swept the world like a butterfly effect. This historic crisis and turning point has allowed us to see the various states of the world under the epidemic. If documentaries can truly record the current plight of all human beings, can it also be presented through the language of graphic design? How grief is manifested? And how that tells the story of the pandemic?
By collecting information on group memories, statistics and news under the pandemic, we wanted to truly and objectively reflect everything that is happening in the surrounding society through the medium of experimental book design, so as to output thoughts and values on the global crisis.
When graphic design becomes a medium for human beings to re-examine memories, events and grief, it can not only better study and excavate the practical value and social significance of graphic design language, but also enable the public to reflect on the past and restart the future.
Annotated bibliography
Texts outside the reading list
- Berinato, S., 2020. That Discomfort You’re Feeling Is Grief. [online] Harvard Business Review. Available at: <https://hbr.org/2020/03/that-discomfort-youre-feeling-is-grief>.
A genuine feeling of communal grief has arisen during the worldwide epidemic. In the text, David Kessler, a grief expert, describes how the standard five phases of grief (denial, anger, bargaining, sadness, and acceptance) apply today in an interview with HBR, as well as the practical strategies we may take to handle the worry.
In the experimental book we designed, I was in charged of the first chapter which talks about the very beginning of the pandemic. What was happening was incomprehensible even to scientists and doctors. It also felt violent and scary and confusing, full of misinformation, questions, denial and disbelieve. In the article, the part about anticipatory grief resonates with my chapter the most. One reaction to the loss of safety wrought by the pandemic, at both a micro and macro level, can be seen as the war on information and the denial of the virus itself. That denial is a coping mechanism, a way to channel grief into something that feels active and gives people back their sense of control.
2. Pattee, E., 2020. Covid-19 makes us think about our mortality. Our brains aren’t designed for that.. [online] The Washington Post. Available at: <https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/covid-thinking-about-death/2020/10/02/1dc0f7e4-c520-11ea-8ffe-372be8d82298_story.html>.
This article records several mental activities the author was going though in the beginning of the pandemic and talks about the ways in which humans avoid thinking about mortality and how we behave when we are reminded of death. The denial of your own potential death was common to see during the epidemic period as people are protesting and spreading the conspiracy theories about COVID-19. It answers why people are reacting such ways. Since our project is to tell the story of the pandemic through the lens of grief manifested on its different forms, it enhances our project in a way that we as designers can use our visual languages to manifest the grief, educate people, document the current plight, reflect on the past and restart the future, as human beings are more tended to attract by visual representations than long texts and vast numbers.
Texts from the reading list
- Laranjo, F., 2014. Critical Graphic Design: Critical of What? | Modes of Criticism. [online] Modes of Criticism. Available at: <https://modesofcriticism.org/critical-graphic-design/>
In the article, it states “The critiques are targeted at social and political phenomena.” Like our project, we are interested in how grief can be presented through the language of graphic design and how we as a designer can record and reflect on the social crisis using our tools. People’s reaction in the COVID-19 pandemic from disbelief to suspension to mourning to living in the shadow, we wanted to record these significant moments of a reflection of living through one of the most consequential events in recent history. Linking back to the article, critical graphic design is also the result of an increased importance of the social sciences, humanities and their multiple research methods being applied, changed and appropriated by design education and designers. The object we chose as the inspiration, the New York Times cover “U.S. deaths near 100,00, an incalculable loss”, is also using critical graphic design to raise awareness of how serious the pandemic is by transform anonymous data into a meaningful memorial of named individuals. Therefore, it is crucial that our project can get people start to think about these social phenomena and introspect on themselves.
2. DiSalvo, C., 2012. Adversarial Design, MIT Press, Cambridge. Available from: ProQuest Ebook Central.
There was a lot of social, political, economic, and humanity issues been revealed through the Covid-19 pandemic. Carl DiSalvo analyses how technology design might challenge and engage the political in his book Adversarial Design. He discusses a process he calls “adversarial design,” in which he employs design’s means and forms to confront people’s ideas, values, and facts. In my opinion, we as designers should use our design to engage people and raise awareness of our current social issues, to interact and make actions. As for our project, we are also trying to do the same thing. By recording the sense of grief from the pandemic, and help our readers to understand and memorize these specific moments in the near history, our goal is to explore and uncover the practical utility and social relevance of graphic design language, while also allowing the public to reflect on the past and relaunch the future.
Design practices/projects
- Shibuya, S., 2021. Taser / Gun. [Acrylic paint, newspaper].
Sho Shibuya is an artist who creates news-inspired work that captured the essence of some of the world’s most important events. By using abstraction and devoid of words, Sho’s work express the events in a manner that a clean line of text could not express. This specific work talks about another African American person was killed by the police, while the officer claimer that she confused her taser and her gun. This piece illustrate grief in a way that the striking visual of the bullet hole and use of the neon yellow, which is the color of the taser, speak for itself without text the fact that it was an unbelievable mistake to make. He was also sharing his sympathy and emotion through his work. Using the same reference (the NYT cover) as Sho Shibuya, we also wanted our project to create resonance and empathy towards the Covid-19 crisis. We believe that graphic design has the power to influence emotions and emotions can influence actions.
2. Tiravanija, R.,2014. Untitled 2014 (We have the Light). [Lithograph].
Similarly using Newspaper as the medium, artist Rirkrit Tiravanija paint over the original newspaper which talks about the tsunami in Japan with enlarged uplifting texts in bright colors to bring out contrasts and suggests a better future. Like our chosen object, the NYT cover which records information about some of the people who had died from Covid-19, the tsunami news also lists a frightening information about people who has lost their life because of it. It creates a powerful impact to the audiences. The enlarged text treatment Tiravanija has done was a why to bring hope and comforting to the audiences. Like our project, while we were documenting grief and tragedy, we were also trying to engage our readers to rethink what has happened and restart future. In our last chapter, we tell the end of the story, the survivors of the pandemic who bear the scars of the disease and also some way of how we as survivors can move forward to a brighter future.