Taking inspiration from Björk’s It’s Oh So Quiet, a song off her album Post, I gathered and researched every idea, emotion, metaphor and visual that could be associated with the song. Based on the song title, I imagined a billowing storm cloud off in the horizon and that calmness that occurs just before the storm. With that, I designed and printed loose graphic & typographic elements onto transparent sheets.

Using projectors—one overhead and one laptop—I composed the sheets onto various surfaces to create what Stan Zienka refers to as “more dimensional” designs. Various pieces of paper, metal, plexi, etc. were overlayed in an experimental fashion with the graphic elements to create the right effect. In the end, the primary image was an un-photoshop’d photograph of the design blown up to a 18″ x 24″ poster. Only the treatment containing the full lyrics of the song at the bottom was digitally added in the end.

Title: It’s Oh So Quiet
Course: Typographic Experiments
Instructor: Stan Zienka (Attik)
Academy of Art University
Fall 2009

Lyrics: Björk