This project was designed for the International Society of Typographic Designers brief on Banned Books. It was awarded for the ISTD Student Assessments, 2017.
The aim is to create a typographic interpretation of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s novel, The Sorrows of Young Werther, written in 1774, in order to highlight one person’s emotional journey that led to his eventual suicide. This book was said to be responsible for a number of copycat suicides so the intention in this digital interpretation is to chart the emotional extremes of the protagonist, giving the reader direct access to particular passages relevant to his changing moods. The overall layout is a graph analysing Werther’s decline.
When the reader clicks on a dot, that word is highlighted throughout the whole timeline of his letters. This way you are able to track and try to understand Werther’s emotions and how they eventually lead to his suicide. Sometimes a word also contains its opposite meaning within the context of the letters. For example, when we see the word happy or happiness this is often because Werther is comparing his sadness to others’ happiness.
The timeline layout tracks Werther’s emotions throughout the almost two years that his letters are written during. His letters are broken down into a series of dates and emotions, where the y-axis shows his emotions and the
x-axis shows time. Having Werther’s letters on a timeline means that the viewer is presented with the full text of the novel, viewable all at once. Scrolling through, it is possible to see every letter that Werther has written on the timeline.
x-axis shows time. Having Werther’s letters on a timeline means that the viewer is presented with the full text of the novel, viewable all at once. Scrolling through, it is possible to see every letter that Werther has written on the timeline.
Each letter was analysed for the occurrence of specific emotions, people, and words. These terms give an indication to Werther's emotional state over time. The size of each dot is relative to the occurrence of the word and helps to navigate the letters
