The idea of prompts from my last project brought me back to one of the things I love most: storytelling. Having studied history, film studies and business, one of the things that is most striking is how everything is about the story you tell. History is the stories we tell ourselves about our past. Films are the business of storytelling. Businesses rise and fall by how well they sell their story to the public.
Storytelling is one of the essential things that we do as humans. It colors how we experience the world around us, how we think about the past and how we imagine the future. I knew I wanted my final project to encompass the universality of storytelling, showing that good stories can help us to empathize and understand perspectives that are not our own, and find commonality in the human experience.
In order to land this idea, I went back to the idea of creating cards. It has become somewhat of a theme throughout my time at CSM and it felt like a fitting form for the final project. I also wanted to lean in to films and filmmaking, as that is what I know and care the most about. Finally, I knew I wanted to try my hand at illustration again. I had avoided illustration in my last few projects because I had received negative feedback about my style and execution in the first term. However, part of the reason I came to art school was to step out of my comfort zone and feel challenged, so it felt right to test myself once again.
The project began to take shape inspired by an illustrated shufflebook created by Richard Hefter in the 1970s. The idea was that each card represented either a subject or action, and could be ordered to create different narratives. I appreciated the simplicity of the form and the interactivity it invited. I also liked the fact that there was potential for virtually endless permutations, mirroring the way in which stories exist.
