F-ing Good Provocation
Editorial design
Communication assets
Website design
London 2022
F-ing Good Provocation is an essay about race, racism and the discrimination that people of Asian heritage faced during the Covid-19 pandemic. It shares their stories during this troubled time, as well as their thoughts and hopes.
The essay was written in 2020 by dance artist Jane Chan, following conversations with 20 dance artists of East and Southeast Asian backgrounds, who live and work in England. In 2022 Chan decided to release a printed publication of the essay and entrusted me with its design.
A provocation, a warning, a voice that cannot be ignored: the minimal and contrasting palette of black, white and yellow is used to create these connotations.
The challenge was to create a design that offers both an engaging reading experience and visually emphasises the provocative themes in the writing. Using a typographic approach, the publication is balanced between a highly personal essay and an urgent artistic manifesto.
To add another layer of reader engagement, I took the opportunity to experiment with the structure of the publication, creating interval pages using handwritten notes and drawings scanned from Jane's notebook. These are her thoughts, questions and emotional responses developed through dialogue with the artists.
The bold display typeface reflects the project's title and its tone, and the cover design maximises that effect. The flexible size of the dash allows the title to exist in both vertical or horizontal formats, in multiple aspect ratios.