| Discipline |
|---|
| Book Design |
| My Role |
|---|
| Planning, Design, Bookbinding, Photography |
Encourage Collaboration
Through Incomplete Books
Arts University Bournemouth (AUB) encourages its students to collaborate across various courses, including design, fashion, art, illustration, acting and film production. As part of my MA project, I worked on the brief: How can graphic design encourage cross-disciplinary collaboration among AUB students?
The primary challenges I faced were:
• How to naturally evoke students’ interest in cross-disciplinary collaboration
• How to reduce potential barriers at the beginning of the collaborative process
• How to effectively support students in taking the step to collaborate
First, I researched the benefits and challenges of collaborative education, and by examining what successful collaboration looks like in areas such as collaborative art, participatory activities, and interactive furniture like the see-saw bench. Based on my research and inspired by the Fun Theory, a concept within Nudge Theory, I created a set of playful, collaborative, typographic storybooks. At the heart of each story is Little Goat, a beloved icon of Bournemouth. Each book represents one of the 24 BA (Hons) courses at AUB and is designed to be incomplete on its own, requiring reference to (collaboration with) other books (students from different courses) to complete the stories. The playful narratives are intended to engage readers while illustrating the process, challenges, and joys of creative collaboration.
This approach allows students to subconsciously collaborate with others to complete the story. By enjoying the narrative, they learn about collaboration in a natural way, which motivates them to start thinking about real cross-disciplinary projects.
