When a tsunami hit the Fukushima Daiichi Power Plant on March 11th in 2011 and led to a nuclear meltdown, the entire world watched in a state of shock. As a result of the catastrophe, more than 25,000 hectares of farmland were contaminated. A team of environmental scientists has developed a sustainable decontamination method that preserves fertile soil. It reduces the amount of radioactive waste by 95% and enables farmers to grow perfectly safe rice again. Alongside paper manufacturers from Fukushima and Gmund Papier, the Moby Digg digital design agency developed a comprehensive book design concept for Meter Group that incorporates the paper made of rice straw from the decontaminated fields.

This book compiles a selection of works that result from the artistic production developed as part of the Masters in Fine Arts – Drawing (U.Porto). At the Cease of the Word | Dawns and Image consists of an investigative project that places at its speculative center the space of contamination between writing and image.

This book is the result of an investigation developed by Ana Mota as part of her Masters in Fine Arts – Drawing (U.Porto).
The study focuses on the space between writing and images. It reflects on the origin of writing, revealing the importance of images in the first stages of non-verbal communication. How do you get from the codified image to the phonetic writing, but also how this type of writing might go back to being image. Starting from this hypothesis, the concept of ascetic writing was introduced, which led the artistic project that was developed. This is, therefore, a reflection on the image as writing but also of writing as image both in theoretical and practical terms.

Few seem to think of geography as subjective. The primary goal of this book was to bring this reflection to the reader’s mind. The representations of our environnement can have an important impact on our perception of the world.
The book was created in a school context for the 2023 edition of the ISTD student assessment.

Orthotypography – on practices and typographic conventions for the editorial context is a book manual that analyses the history of typography and text composition practices to reflect on our current practices and, perhaps, put forth new practice propositions.

This is a project that started as a MA thesis and has since evolved into a finished book that allows for both consultation and continuous reading and its form spawns from those characteristics. Several characteristics, like the fold-out TOC and the glyphs at the top left and right corners of every spread, promote quick consultation; on the other hand, the modular grid and text layout allow for continuous reading.

Sophia — Campo Alegre showcases work by art students from the School of Education of Porto’s Polytechnic, Portugal. The book is composed of two sections—drawing and cyanotype—divided by fold-out pages and a heavy-duty sheet of paper that also served as a colophon. The layout enables the book to be read from both left to right and right to left.

140 pages; 6½ × 10½ inches, 4-color plus 1 PMS screen printed cover, perfect bound, fold-out spreads near the central book divider.

A catalog about a sculpture exhibit that displayed concrete volumes is turned into a concrete volume itself, using eskaboard without any finishing, revealing the structural materials of the box. The typeset composition was overpressed against the cardboard, so that the dry relief would create cracks in the surface, mimicking what happened with the concrete volumes over time. The photos sit inside, printed using Risography, without any binding, allowing for a reshuffling of the photo’s order, alluding to the mutable nature of the original exhibit, which was updated daily by the artist for 30 days straight.

In December 2001, Argentina was going through one of the worst economic and social crisis of its history.
With all of people’s savings trapped in a bank “playpen”, a currency devaluation, raising prices, a fast-increasing poverty and a government who wasn’t able to bring any logical solution -but instead decreed a state of siege-, the Argentinean people went out to the streets and marched under the motto “let them all go, so that not a single one of them remains”.

This work tries to reflect and explain the anger, the desperation and the uncertainty of the Argentinean people during those tough times.

” Fragments of Time” investigates a fragment of the cultural positioning and visual view of Japan. This is achieved through the works of seven Japanese photographers.

The book creates an atmosphere where the reader can experience a connection to traditions through the bookbinding. The paper is of low opacity to showcase the colored gradient within the double folded pages, creating a narrative of time. As you read through the book, the pages become darker, as do the pictures, symbolizing the passage of time. In this way, the gradient represents time, and the materiality strengthens the storytelling along with the photography.

In Light of Recent Events is a scrapbook that serves as a reflection on the visual topology of news reporting and the aesthetics with which news images and headlines communicate a sense of urgency and immediacy, that marks the state of alertness today.

The images in this book try to illustrate the battle for the publics’ short attention span by means of catchy headlines and provocative images. Through colour, composition and typography In Light of Recent Events tries to visually distort the familiar use of these building blocks and aims to create an even bigger and more outrageous spectacle of news reporting.

One problem my generation has is the loss of commitment. Fear of making the wrong decisions and the feeling of missing out makes it difficult for us to commit to something, let alone commit to it permanently.
The folding allows readers* different ways to flip through the pages: In the cover, they are easy to handle and can be read easily from front to back. When the cover is removed, the flexible sides of the binding are revealed: Now all the booklets can be placed next to each other and read in parallel. This makes it easy to establish references between the chapters and convey the mood of the Generation Unverbindlichkeit.

Looking at today’s design, it can be observed how visual trends repeat themselves after some time by citing styles from past eras. This happens in a cycle of about 20 years. In the process, the origins of today’s trends are mostly unknown and it seems as if there is a constant imitation of already existing designs.
But how do design trends emerge and who determines how contemporary graphic design unfolds? By tracing historical developments in design, the book deals with the reappraisal of the hitherto undocumented remains of Studio Vernacular’s trend archive, which, beginning in the 1980s, had a great influence on the history of European design and whose work continues to this day.

When is it necessary to say NO? When is this NO a chance? Does NO help us or does it slow us down? When is a NO more right, more important or more promising than a YES? When is design deliberately used to hide content? When does design negate through the media it uses? When is NO positive, when negative? When is a NO destructive, when constructive? And how does NO become a book?