Geometrica
Graphic Design Coffee Table Book
2021
A preview of my recent book, "Geometrica", available to purchase on Amazon. Featured in an interview with the Osprey Observer.
Geometry is everywhere. From sunflowers to galaxies to your refrigerator and everything in it. It has been used to communicate ideas ranging from spirituality to mathematics across civilizations. Even Da Vinci's Vitruvian Man exemplifies the ideologies of geometric design in the thing most intimate to us—ourselves.
I was an illustrator before I was a graphic designer, and I'm grateful to have learned observational painting and drawing before graphic design. Slowly, I moved away from illustration and became obsessed with reduction. I asked myself, "how far can I reduce an idea to where it is still understood? Even better, how can I use this reduction to actually enhance or clarify the message?" In this way, I found my passion for minimalist design. Great artists like Andy Warhol, Frank Lloyd Wright, and Frank Stella were pioneers in the minimalist movement. Their simplification is audacious, brave in its time, and their works hold strong identities.
Geometrica is my graphic design study aimed to explore the compositions of four basic shapes: Triangles, Squares, Hexagons, and Circles. In this way, it is a creative sandbox for me, and perhaps a coffee-table-picture-book for you. Each spread is designed to be a subtle visual puzzle. Or bout of cognitive dissonance. Or perhaps a door to a memory, portrayed in a new and simple light.
You may notice some overlap between sections. As much as I tried to mitigate this for the sake of focus, it is in a way inevitable, because of the self-evident relationships these simple shapes share. This endeavor, Geometrica, sent me on a tremendous mental adventure, one I could embark on at any time, both conscious and unconscious. I thoroughly enjoyed being able to discover and invent these graphic solutions, and in turn, develop a lens for artistic translation in the process. As cliché as it seems, it helped me better understand myself and the world around me.
A desensitized eye likely overlooks these simple shapes every day, but a sharpened one will see a plethora. Perhaps after perusing these pages you will discover things in the world in a new way—triangles here, squares there, circles in the rest—and appreciate the beauty in their simplicity.