When starting this unit, I was feeling a bit unsure of what to do. I had spent a month at home working in a very monotonous job. My days consisted of driving in a loop around my county, going to different schools and checking their vitals. I had a lot of creative energy when I arrived home, but after I left, I had nothing going on in my creative mind.

While I was at home, I made a publication — To Bring You My Love about the steps I have to take to arrive in my hometown from London. I mention it as I feel like it’s informed where I am now — (April 23rd).

I really felt like it was a labour of love to come home for the holidays, it required two tubes and a train to Stansted, a change of planes in iceland, an Amtrak from BWI to DC, a Metro to Ashburn, a stay in a hotel, and a three hour car ride home. I wanted to communicate that what I was bringing home was not just my body, but my energy and mind.

During the first week, I had to consider what I wanted to do. Fresh off the heels of everything being about decay, humour, and chaos, I decided to continue down a parody route — attempting to make a parody of a branding guidelines book. I wanted to exemplify the rot that exists at the core of brands. From my professional experience, I can often see that brands that hire designers to “rebrand” the company often do so at times of crisis. There are structural issues that lead up to these crises that are unaddressed by a simple logo redesign.

I began by writing the foreword and producing a few different iterations, but the feedback I received was that my project was too dark, too nihilistic in tone. At this point I got a bit stuck and had to go back to the drawing board on what I wanted to do.