typographical map sofia

I started the assignment by looking around my room and thinking about the things that are here, my routine and what this room means to me. I reached the conclusion that there is almost nothing personal in my room except for the few items I brought with me from Rotterdam. I noticed that the only story that this room tells is that I don’t live here anymore and that my body is the only trace of my existence in this room. In the beginning, one of my ideas was to make a typographical map about how my body fills the room. I explored different ideas and made prototypes of this but in the end, it seemed too simple to execute.

Instead, I decided to do a map about the 5 years that I’ve had in this room (plus the extra 3 quarantine months). People usually say “one image is worth a thousand words” so I decided to transform the picture of my room into a 1000 words. I wanted this map to tell a story on each page about everything that I went through in my room. Just to be clear, this is the room I’ve had since I moved to Sweden in 2015, so it was a room where I spent my teenage years and where I was growing and adapting to this new life in a new country. It changed between being my safe space and somewhere where I didn’t want to be at.

I started by making a mind map about each year from 2015 to 2020 and tried to write down my feelings, colours I could associate with these memories, what happened inside my room, which thoughts I had, etc. After that, I tried to visualise each year in a typographical way. I also thought about having a book that has pages that grow in size and get smaller again, which would represent the time spent in this room. However, later, I came up with the idea of the book being called “5 Years”. I decided to try on a prototype on how it would look like with the letters cut off. In each letter, you can see one of the years (for example Y=2015; E=2016; A=2017). In number 5 you see these last three months that I spent here. This also represents the entering of strangers inside my room and the fact that this book is very personal and the viewer is getting to know a part of me that is hidden. I divided each year into 4 pages, so every two pages represent every 6 months that I lived in this room. Before the final result, I sketched some more on how I could visualise each year, but these were the ones that worked best.

The final result became very personal to me and something that I can remember my room by. This will probably be the last time I’ll be here, so this book was almost a tribute to my room, or a goodbye, where I recorded my feelings and growth here along the years. In the end, I filmed me going through the book because I believed it was the easiest way to show it. And I filmed the pages flying away which represent me letting my memories and this room go. (I had also thought about burning the book, but after some feedback, I realised that these weren’t bad memories and that I actually cherish them, so I let them fly away instead).

The typefaces I chose were:
- Gotham for the title “5 Years” because it was used for campaigns and it’s a display typeface that looks more professional.
- Nimbus Sans for the rest because it supported more languages (such as the swedish characters), and came in different weights which allowed me to have more possibilities when designing. It’s also sans serif which gives it a more minimalistic and modern look which also represents my room.

The book is in B&W, not only because of the fact that I couldn’t print in colours, but also because that way the focus is more on the typography.

There are some things I could have done differently. For example, I would have liked to glue the pages instead of stitching them, because the cut out of the letters would have looked better. And I would also have liked to make the pages really fly (there was no wind that day) which would also have been easier it the pages were separate from each other. I am aware that the book looks very DIY, but I did my best with what I had at home.

Little explanation of every “chapter” (every two pages):

1-2: in the introduction, you read “5 years in this room. It was a time for growth and discovery. Now the room is gone and all it remains are memories. It is all material after all, but still, there is attachment. I am also gone, to faraway lands.”

3-4: represents the many conversations I had on Skype with my Portuguese friends. That’s why I decided to use a plastic cover to give the feeling of a computer screen. I also wanted to show the invasion of my room, since there were always people coming into my room without being here physically.

5-6: symbolises the fact that I felt lost from everything since this country was new for me and I didn’t know anyone and everything seemed new and scary. The letters are morphing, just like I was, and the words were changing from Portuguese to Swedish. Everything was a mess.

7-8: artistic side was back. I was feeling better and inspired. I spent a lot of time making art and creating. It was exciting.

9-10: I was trying to figure out who I was and wanted to be. Why I was in Sweden and what the meaning of this all was.

11-12: I felt disconnected. Every time I came back home it didn’t feel like home. It smelled different, etc. I had lost connection with some friends in Portugal and I felt afloat.

13-14: represents when I read the book of Marie Kondo about minimalism and I was trying to get rid of the things that I didn’t love or need. The background is black and represents the unnecessary things I had in my life and which made my life worse. The white rectangles symbolise the space that I was freeing.

15-16: I was graduating high school, life was fun. I was hanging out with my friends and came home drunk. Had sleepovers, and a lot of late-night thoughts and feelings were overwhelming. A lot was happening and I always had a lot of thoughts inside my mind, especially while laying in bed.

17-18: my life in this room was paused. I was not here for 6 months.

19-20: I was packing up my bags to leave for Rotterdam. Inside the boxes, I wrote some of my thoughts which I had while packing them.

21-22: quarantined. The life and things I left in my room in Rotterdam. How I feel about that and the blurriness represents how far away my things are and how much it seems like I don’t remember what I left in my room and how much I miss my things and my room in Rotterdam.

23-24: how my body fills my room. My last night and morning in this room. The letters represent the head, hands and body and the movement and time I spent between my bed, desk and wardrobe.