Sunday 6 November 2011

Concorde - Odyssey

A project influenced by the word Concorde - the restriction of the brief was to only use that typeface within our publication.

After some pretty thorough research we found that in 1710 a ship called 'Concord' was built in England during Queen Anne's War of Succession. This frigate ship was only at seas for a year before it was hijacked and utilised by one of the largest slave trading companies The Montaudiouns. 
The ship was renamed 'La Concorde De Nantes' and went onto travel from France, to Africa, to the distant New World on 3 trade missions. On its third mission it was intercepted by the one and only Blackbeard the pirate and modified to have more cannons and less cargo space.
At this point the Concorde was renamed the more commonly known Queen Anne's Revenge. It went on 6 long months of pillaging and blockading and battling along the East coast of the Americas before Blackbeard agrounded the ship in hope of leaving behind his overpopulated crew and start a fresh.



So that was our story and well, quite interesting to say the least. We decided that we would interpret this story through the ship itself and its transformations over the years. Our communicative method of choice were Shanty songs, traditionally sung aboard ships by the sailors. These shanties were concealed through a hand drawn coat of arms along with chorus' that were set on tracing paper and an old hand drawn map the backdrop corresponding to that part of the back story.

The cover was hand bound and Gold leaf pressed for a very traditional look. Here a few pictures anyway. I really enjoyed this project, first group one of this term and landed on our feet with the research,. Definitely want to develop it to create a more contemporary design on the inside but apart from that very happy with the outcome and finish. 


When I get the book in my possession I will post a few more pictures.