DISCORD: MUSICAL REFLECTION UPON CONFLICT
Museum exhibition project encompassing graphic identity, environmental graphics, narrative literature, and package design.
EXHIBIT CONCEPT
Post-hardcore music, which is characterized by emotion and aggression, experienced a boom for a short time in the late 1980s and early 1990s with the work of Washington, DC band Fugazi. In the early 21st century, the genre regained popularity, and it experienced an explosion in success in the following decade. Chronologically coinciding with post-hardcore's success are strings of events causing significant strife to the world – wars, protests, and large-scale terrorist acts. As a result, a parallel can be drawn between success of post-hardcore and unrest, or discord, in the world.
PHASE ONE: LOGOTYPE
Six typefaces of varied styles are overlaid upon one another, creating a myriad of restless and active lines. Type is tracked inward to create layering between letters of the same typeface as well as other typefaces. Despite complexity and distortion, legibility and readability of the word "Discord" are preserved. Metaphorically, the logotype references the layering of sound and frantic aggression in post-hardcore music.
PHASE TWO: ENVIRONMENTAL GRAPHICS
The logotype is placed across the entirety of the museum wall, overflowing from the edges of its confining space. In order to read introductory text to the exhibit, a viewer must engage closely with the wall; in this case, the myriad of the logotype literally engulfs the viewer in Discord.
ALSO PHASE TWO: ENVIRONMENTAL GRAPHICS
Similarly to the indoor graphic, the outdoor graphics use relationship of scale to draw viewers into reading small type. Since the exhibition dates are the only readily-available aspects of the poster from afar, a viewer must engage with the poster to receive any information on the exhibit.
PHASE THREE: NARRATIVE LITERATURE
Interior spreads of an accordion fold format are utilized to create an editorial booklet. These spreads are utilized for a magazine article-inspired explanation of the post-hardcore genre and its relevance to international strife.
The backside of the booklet displays a proportionally-scaled timeline of notable post-hardcore music releases and events of global strife from 1989 to 2005. When completely unfolded, the booklet functions as a poster to be displayed after a visit to the exhibition, displaying a timeline of international crises and post-hardcore record releases.
Similar layering of type is borrowed from the logotype, museum wall, and poster to create coherence between the narrative literature and the environmental graphics. Halftone imagery is used to create restlessness and rawness. The color palette is carried from the environmental graphics, but the yellow is muted and use of color is minimized to create a serious tone within the literature.
PHASE FOUR: TAKEAWAY
As an exhibition takeaway, a cassette package for Fugazi's Repeater, a firestarter in the post-hardcore genre, is created. The package is masked as a generic match box from the era of the 1990s. Mechanically, the package works identically to a match box with an outer sleeve and an inner tray to hold the contents. Quotes from songs featured on the record which resonate with the concept of the exhibition are placed on the back of the sleeve and on the bottom of the tray, to be exposed when the cassette is taken out and to push the element of viewer interaction.