Jack Bennett
About Me
Work
Air Louis
The Path to Discovery
Impact Atlas
Herzog Sequence
DIVE
How To Make Taffy
Labor Collages
The Laws of Simplicity
Impact Atlas is a 12 page broadsheet catalog of research into Dutch designers Experimental Jetset. It’s typography driven and highlights substance and space in the style of an atlas. The reader is drawn from a global view down to a local view as the read through the periodical.
The work is clean in style in tone, emulating their design style without replicating it. The design brief asked for play and experimentation with the goal of developing a clear visual and typographic system throughout the work. Research drew from their online archive, a site visit to the Whitney in NYC, the work of their teachers & Dutch contemporaries (Linda van Deursen!) as well as hands-on research with an early piece of theirs, “Advanced Economics.”
Insights from research showed how they express materiality in design as a statement of political and community values. This challenged the design system to reflect physical and tangible presence inside and outside of the finished piece. Process shifted toward choosing the broadsheet as an item that reflects a specific point in time, and design language that measures physical space as a reflection on the keyword “impact.”
This project illustrated the power of material presence in design and the role of systems within the lifespan of a project. Physicality in design work begins to evoke how material choices become a statement of values.