The Future is Ugly
INSERT: 420MM x 297MM, 110 PP. RECYPAL MATT 70GSM, TRACING PAPER 100GSM, NEW ECO FRONTIER 150GSM, ROPE-BIND
COVER: HANDMADE CONCRETE CASING, STAINLESS STEEL WIRE
DISSERTATION BOOKLET
INSERT: 216MM × 128MM, 19 PP. SIRIO 80 (PERLA) 80GSM, THREAD-SEWN
COVER: LEATHER BOOK CLOTH
The Future is Ugly is the magnum-opus of my degree studies with The Glasgow School of Art. Culminating in the form of an editorial, the work is an extension of my dissertation on digital brutalism and the anti-aesthetic. The study looks into the rise and fall of trends & artistic movements, questions the role of ‘ugly’ design of the modern day, and explores the anti-aesthetic as a theory. While the context of the research was grounded in the prevalence of ‘avant-garde’ and unhospitable design in websites & UIUX, the editorial translates the anti-aesthetic theory into practice through branding & advertising.
As with all art movements, the emergence of new eras in art history often developed as reactions or reflections to the times preceeding or enveloping them. The return of ‘ugly’ design mirrors the state of web design in it’s infancy, in which its visual language is largely experimental due to a lack of undertanding of the new medium. Today, we see these same characteristics applied intentionally, theorised to be a reaction towards the cookie-cutter and homogenised creative landscape of the 2010s. In various creative disciplines, our practice is bound by systems and conventions that are in favour of ‘how it should be‘ rather than ‘how it could be‘. The Future is Ugly seeks to capture a zeitgeist of 21st century—The ugly, the kitsch, the misunderstood, the rebels and the grotesque alike.