CORAL BLEACHING

ISTD BRIEF | Create a typographic piece that provides an indirect experience and celebrates our human connection with nature.

CORAL BLEACHING | During a trip to the beach in Diani, Kenya, I had come across one living piece of coral that I hadn’t recognised at first, it was still colourful, soft and squishy. The complete opposite to all the dead washed up coral on the sand I had seen previously.

Although these creatures were no longer living, they were still so beautiful. Through my research I discovered the causes and effects of coral bleaching are mainly due to human impact and global warming.

As part of my final I created a sculpted typeface depicting bleached coral rather than the vibrant reefs that are usually shown on television and in illustrations as many people aren’t very aware of this issue. In the beginning of the alphabet there is barely little coral on the surface of the letter, as its mimics broken bleached coral. However towards the end of the alphabet the whole letter is covered in a reef, bringing back life to the corals.

I used Styrofoam and poked it with a pencil to add depth to mimic a broken piece of dead coral. I then used clay to to build up the reef.