Background
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The School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University (SMFA) approached me to design their course catalog for the fall 2020 semester. They wanted a refresh of their catalog's layout and an enticing cover along with it. It should be noted that I was commissioned for this project right as the COVID-19 pandemic started, a fact that influenced my design process for the catalog.
Visual Concept
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Recognizing the gravity of the pandemic, I knew that assuaging students' anxiety around the precarious future through sardonic humor was the way to go; the cover was the perfect means to do so. The cover pokes fun at the fact that we were spiraling into uncertainty. From the front, the man confidently jumps into the cover towards the new semester, fall 2020. The back cover reveals, however, that the man has fallen face first off the cover.
Besides the clever visual joke on the cover, the pandemic also shifted my approach for the catalog's layout. Since most classes were moved online, the catalog needed to be accessible both in print and digitally. To that end, I refined the catalog's layout by color coding sections for easier navigation and organizing content by the degree of relevance for clearer and faster readability.
The front and back cover, left and right respectively, are the set up and punchline for the visual joke as mentioned above.
Credits
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Creative Direction – Anh-Tuan Le
Design – Anh-Tuan Le
Print Consultation – Anh-Tuan Le
