BIOPHILIA

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.

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.

To showcase the typeface, I created an A5 magazine on what is coral? why they do to bleach? and what humans can do to stop coral bleaching and how to create a positive impact. This magazine can be sent to the homes of the people who like to stay indoors or can be distributed at the beach to make people who spend their time there more aware of their actions at the beach. I chose a simple san-serif typeface to contrast with the DIN condensed sub heading font and so that the main focus is on the display font. The magazine contains a fold out in the centre spread to make the effect on bleaching more impactful. The background of the stock throughout the magazine is black so that the different shades of white can stand out. The stock is G.F. Smith Natural textured paper as from far the soft body copy looks like narrow pieces of coral. The main aim of the magazine is to raise awareness on coral bleaching and our impact.