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Raphaela Carvalho Moraes

MFA in Graphic Design - 3 Yr Path — Graduate Graphic Design
Course:
GRFX-501 Graduate Studio 1
Faculty:
Christian Perez-Morin

Engawa | Booklet

For this project, I had to create an introduction section (called engawa) that will go at the beginning of the booklet we are designing for this class. The booklet is the follow-up of the wordmark project, having the same person as subject (James Dean). This is an ongoing project.
Learning Outcomes:
The engawa is our opportunity to create something more poetic for our book. The greatest challenge here is finding a concept and the balance of it, to work as the introduction of the booklet and to set the mood of the book. Here I chose to highlight a very important part of James Dean's life that is not his career as an actor: his love for cars, that is also what ended his life. Finding the right tone to address these two aspects was very interesting to experiment with.
James Dean was an actor but he was also a racer on his free time. He loved to drive, loved cars and loved to race. That was when he felt the best, where he felt whole but that's also how his life ended. He passed in 1955 in a car crash, while driving his car to go to a race. The first page of my engawa, the opening of the book, is a quote said by James Dean: "Racing is the only time I feel whole". I created a note in his handwriting and signature in Photoshop using archive photos of his real handwriting. The following pages are composed of an illustration and an excerpt of songs that quote the name of James Dean. On each page, the illustration I made using Procreate and Adobe Fresco is of a car that James Dean had throughout his life. The aim of the song excerpts is to create a narrative and also to show the legacy he left even after his death, being mentioned in songs throughout almost 70 years. Legacy is one of the main topics in my booklet.
The last page of the engawa shows the car in which he suffered the accident, along with a excerpt of music that talks a little about this moment and ends talking about how the actor stayed for eternity, which combines very well with the focus of my book that is his influence that lasts until today.