Christopher Hobbs-Massou
"Bury me when I die beneath a wine barrel in a tavern. With luck the cask will leak."
- Moriya Senan, d-1838
drip drip drip
My Intention with this first poster was to capture the concept of breaking away from conventional attitudes to death.
Moriya Senan's haiku (Senan, M. c~1800's) is undoubtedly a death poem, but what immediately caught my attention is the unusual stance it takes. Instead of being a grim or despairing lament, his take is a far more lighthearted approach to death - stark opposition to the normal, more bleak, attitudes of his native Japan, and my native West.
From this I decided loosely on core themes of Death (naturally), Nonchalance (or a lightness of heart), and a defiant sort of Independence. This might seem like a strange choice, But I was led to this conclusion because I feel that the borderline 'carefree' spirit of the poem breaks strongly from traditional attitudes to 'the eternal sleep'.
initial themes and sketckes - 10 min
My initial sketches from the first ten minute exercise focused on pulling out the basic ideas. Death, independence and nonchalance.
Later, I put to paper some of the concepts that had been floating around in my mind, beginning with a 'Rorschach inspired' death mask design, and moving on to weighted representations from the poem.
Ultimately what I found, was that these ideas looked great in my head, but failed to express the depth that I wanted. Coming across as too literal and unimaginative.
positioning
These are the sketches where I deliberately moved away from the literal interpretations.
Beginning with the drop design from earlier, I wrote up some quick notes of what it represented, then played with other ways to interpret it - moving to parallel bars, then including a droplet, to break the repetition.
After that the bars took a circular form, representing, among other things, life and its inherent cycles. Finally, the drop flowed outside the boundary of the circle it came from and eventually outside the page, representing the independence of Sen'an's unique take on death.
#Design101 #DesignUoA
Cited Work:
Senan, M. (2018, January 21). Bury me when I die beneath a wine barrel in a tavern. With luck, the cask will leak. Retrieved April 2, 2020, from https://dearhankandjohnshortpoems.tumblr.com/post/169967144658/bury-me-when-i-die-beneath-a-wine-barrel-in-a