For me the first place to start my research was by reading the thirty articles of the Universal Declaration and deciding which may make suitable subjects for my piece.
A few of the articles immediately stand out to me as good subject to design a piece for, these are:
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was proclaimed in December 1948 and it did strike me as an uncomfortable truth that there are places in the world today, were member states of the United Nations are not holding these standards, I feel that whilst this is a University project it is important to think of this project as if it was a piece to be displayed to illustrate basic human rights as set out in this Declaration.
All articles and information sourced from https://www.un.org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-human-rights Last Accessed 19/10/2022
Wim Crouwel is a Dutch graphic designer, described as a modernist he designed posters in his native Netherlands for exhibitions at the Van Abbe Museum. He also founded a design consultancy called Total Design alongside fellow designers Benno Wissing, Friso Kramer, Dick Schwartz and Paul Schwartz. He also designed typefaces with his New Alphabet being the most famous, his style was always functional but with an eye for aesthetics, for example using lines in this poster for a exhibition called Met Textiel.
Source (http://www.iconofgraphics.com/Wim-Crouwel/) Last Accessed 20/10/2022
You can see how Wim has used the white lines on a grey background to give a sense of a woven piece of fabric, the type is sans serif and clear against the background, the design is minimalist but visually appealing, giving a message about the exhibition without being too obvious.
I also got the book below from the library, to inspire my designs, it includes lots of Wim Crouwel’s work and and has commentary on the pieces by Wim himself.
I will take a lot of inspiration from Wim Crouwel as his work is minimalist, but by skilful use of typography, colour and fundamental design elements, he still manages to create a narrative, which is what I am aiming to do with my design.
Taking learning from the first project, I decided to start sketching right from the start of this project to get my ideas out on paper all the way through the project, rather than starting with research and then sketching.