Circle of Life
A walk in Charlottenlund Graveyard by Malin Söderström
Theme: Narrative images – A walk in the park, the feeling of comfort in meeting
people and religion
The illustration’s are made as snapshots from a walk in the graveyard in early
autumn. I want to communicate a warm feeling with people visiting the graves as
well as just enjoying the sun and park-function of the graveyard.
ILLUSTRATIONS AND LAYOUT
The strength in this project lies in its geographical position and its multifunction
as a graveyard as well as a park. The multi-functionality is enhanced through
different religious sections, graves, varied topography and landscape. With my
presentation I want to emphasize the possibilities with Charlottenlund
Graveyard, with focus on this multi-functionality. With the panoramic format as
the overall guide, I aim to give the viewer a wide experience of the project. Not
only the overall poster is influenced by the panoramic format, some of the
illustrations are as well. The red-thread in this presentation is the walk I the park
and somehow also, panorama. As with panoramic photos more information, than
expected in one photo, is possible to communicate. With this well-known format
the viewer is prepared to take in a lot of information, from every picture as well
as the overall, symbolic panorama, of the presentation as a whole.
The illustrations are to communicate a warm and welcoming place. General
colour scheme (with yellow, pink, red, orange, brown, light green)
is used through out all the illustrations made in autumn time, whereas only
some colour occur in illustrations of winter, spring and night-time . The
illustrations complement each other in aspects of time, activities and places. The
theme of snap shots from a walk in the graveyard aims to communicate an
everyday feel of the place. Representation of people of different age, gender,
religion, sexuality and ethnicity has been an important factor through out the
whole presentation. It’s an ethical and political question as well as in line with
my theme of multi-functionality. The overall structure of the layout is that the
eye-catchers works as the foundation, the “ground-level” and the smaller less
expressive and more varied illustrations (in aspects of time and format) are
floating more freely, though structured in the “sky”. In accordance with the
theme (a walk in the park), most of the views are taken from an adult persons
eye - height.
TEXT
With a lot of expressive and wider format illustrations the text is handled with a
more strict and “newspaper” - structured layout to balance the whole poster.
This way of handling text, with eye – catching main titles, subtitles and
introductions (readable from a distance) and main text with more immerse
information (here fonts with serifs to enhance readability for everyone) enables
several levels of reading. The intros to every main text box is enough to give a
fast message of what I want to communicate with the presentation. The font used
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in titles and subtitles is a clean and simple one with a grey colour, found in a lot
of the illustrations. A subtler font was chosen so it doesn’t compete with the
illustrations nor give inappropriate associations.
HIERARCHY
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Illustration “Bird-eye-view”: quite complex, overview-illustration (acting
as a plan) therefore in the beginning of presentation where the reader is
more concentrated
Illustration 1 (eye – catcher 1): expressive, founded in the baseline of the
poster, together with eye-catcher 3 creates a substantial ground to the
presentation. These illustrations also work as “take-off” and “landing
runway” for the reading.
Ill. 2 (night view): communicates function and attraction during darker
hours.
Ill. 3 (wintertime): shows forest islet and the possibilities of using the
graveyard as a park, with Norwegian national sport activities such as
skiing.
Ill. 4 (springtime): aims to communicate springtime-feel of the place as
well as introducing the muslim-prayer place. Enhancing the message of
the place as holy one through the extra “god-like” lightning coming from
the sky. Woman in praying place wears veil to give an association to
Islam.
Ill. 5 (rainy day): close up on muslim prayer place, giving weight to the
place showing how people will use it regarding weather conditions. In
this ill one woman wears veil whilst one doesn’t, to help association to
Muslims but also to show a fair representation.
Ill. 6 (panorama/eye-catcher 2): expressive, more of a collection of
activities that can occur at the graveyard as well as showing the
topography of the forest islet. More saturated colours as well as layers of
sketches to enhance feeling of conceptual picture. Likewise it is more
floating rather than founded in the ground to separate it (physically and
subconsciously) from eye-catcher 1 and 2.
Ill. 7 (towards all missed peoples place): communicates a nice warm
autumn morning. The felling of walking towards All missed peoples place
is supposed to be enhanced by the people only being silhouettes, these
people can be dead or missed. As in ill. 6 mobility impaired are
represented.
Ill. 8 (eye catcher 3): this illustration works as a warm farewell. The ill.
shows the beauty of the geographical position, the Norwegian fjordlandscape. It also communicates comfort in this landscape and in other
people. With only two men standing close to each other in this place of
contemplation, an interpretation of them being lovers or very close
friends is enhanced.
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