Design Rules

Every creative work is both a product of what you keep in and what you leave out. Curating an experience, developing an aesthetic, and setting expectations all help to highlight the main message.

In the beginning, there was a lot of experimentation, starting with the first unity section. How could I show in a picture or series of pictures, what it feels like when people are emptying their busy minds and making space for each other?

No arrows

Arrows weren't going to work. They go from something specific, to something specific. In my book, neither the from or the to was going to be exactly defined. Also, they were so full of energy and momentum. In my experience, making space for others, especially in that moment of beginning to tune into each other, doesn't have a lot of momentum, it's more like slowing down. We need to quiet ourselves, to stop, to be still, and momentarily, disappear.

For that matter, no symbols

Similarly, as you can see in the final frame of this experimental sketch, symbols, even little ones like the minor plus sign above the character's head on the right, call a lot of attention to themselves. What does it mean? What's being added? Are they swearing? Or dizzy? I didn't want anything that looked like letters or written symbols.

No objects

In the beginning, I tried out a few scenarios where acts of love might occur, listening to a speaker, setting the table together. It became very clear very fast that these were limiting. A simple thing like a podium communicates all kinds of things, presumed hierarchy, persuasion good or bad, maybe an expectation of a certain education level. Even setting the table, well what style of table? Which chair? What cup? How many cups? This also indicates expectations of material goods, their quality or quantity, and is a way we stratify people unnecessarily.

I wanted the book to be more about how we prepare ourselves to approach any situation, not just certain ones. If I could focus on the how, not the what or the why, I might have a chance of actually articulating the how.

No gender or age

It was important to me that the figures would be interchangeable. The reader could in turn overlay themselves onto any of the characters, maybe even identify with different ones on different days or situations. Sometimes I deliberately placed conflicting gender cues, like narrow sloping shoulders with big feet. I wanted a perpetual entry point for the reader, where nothing in the image would close them out of the scene, but instead, the third wall, or even a first person perspective was always available.

No faces

Our expressions change dozens of times in just a few seconds. Most moments, we are not feeling one simple sensation or expressing one emotion, we are complex, feeling hundreds of things at once, communicating hundreds of things at once. It was very important to leave the expressions up for interpretation. I wanted to indicate a frame of mind, a way of being present, but in the multitude we experience in reality.

Yes figures, lines, dots

So what was left? What did I allow myself to use as I went to communicate what I wanted to say? Whatever I wanted to show in mood, reaction, speech, movement, impact or momentum, I gave myself these parameters: I could use,

• Figures

• Lines

• Dots

That's it.