Étude is a graphic design research project exploring how design conventions shape the way we think, work and make decisions.
Four études, on color, typography, composition and grid, turn each convention into a design exercise, testing theory through making. Instead of offering a new method,
the project pauses to look again at what seems obvious, and keeps asking questions.
Guided by Maya Gur and Ella Sade
Installation: Shahaf Cohen
Animation assist: Omri Steigman
Photography: Edo Asoulin
Process & References
The project grew out of Design Against Design, which pushed me to think beyond designing things beautifully; Peter Fischli and David Weiss’s book of questions; and an exhibition in Tokyo that approached natural disasters through questions and answers.
Each étude follows the same structure: a question, an animated infographic that explains the convention, and an exercise that puts it to the test. One visual language, a single color system, type system and video style, runs through all four, so the only thing that changes from étude to étude is the convention under examination. The opening film was built from found footage, a slowed-down song and a voiceover of my own text.
Every étude changes one thing and holds everything else still. The same site in three colorways. The same content as a printed spread and as a website, with their typographic rules swapped. The same content in two different compositions. The same subway signage, built with a grid and without one.
In the color étude, three versions of one site showed that color is less a design choice than a convention of everyday life: we’re told to break it and play with it, yet our minds decode it before we read a word.
Question → Infographic → Étude
Color · Typography · Composition · Grid
User Research Reference Research Context Research
Listening Habits → Radio Platforms → Work Routines → Pain Points →
User Journey → Information Architecture → Wireframes → Visual Language → High Fidelity UI → Prototype → Final Design
If I made you curious, lets contact, We could figure out how to work together.
If I made you curious, lets contact, We could figure out how to work together.