Portfolio for the «Visual Communications» course: sixteen works across four categories—postcards, record covers, film posters, and a series of book covers.
Postcards
Four A5 postcards: each with its own occasion and one main image. The text here functions like a picture. Happy Birthday. A fox with a candle in a cupcake and confetti. One character, one occasion. Bon Anniversaire. A rose under a cloche on a small planet, a reference to «The Little Prince.» The French inscription personalizes the card. Happy Taaaks Day! The stretched letter «a» fills the space and becomes texture. The joke relies on the typeface. Happy Tiramisu Day. Layers of cream and cocoa are stacked to form a cross-section of the dessert; the letters rest on the layers. The occasion has become an image.
Covers
le irossa — Satura. Pomegranate in inverted colors: blue and turquoise instead of red. The title is rendered in a contour pixel font, making the fruit look like a frame from a dream.
Antena — Camino del Sol. Sunset over water with a double exposure: dark silhouettes emerge through the sun. The signature stands out in purple against the warm palette.
Beach House — 7. Black and white photo collage of a party with motion blur, stars, and a large numeral 7. The shot is deliberately blurred, like a sound in the fog.
Dean Blunt — as long as ropes unravel fake Rolex will travel. A back view with a Madonna tattoo and a profile silhouette on a black background.
Movie Posters
Four posters, each featuring one main image instead of a cast list: the design varies across all of them, and each lists the title, director, and actors.
«Coffee and Cigarettes, ” 2003. Directed by Jim Jarmusch, starring Roberto Bennini, Tom Waits, Iggy Pop, Kate Blanchett, and Bill Murray. The film consists of short conversations at a table where nothing happens, so the poster is built around a single object: a mug containing a vinyl record instead of coffee. The checkerboard floor and black-and-white palette capture the film’s mood, while the smoke from a cigarette transforms into a line that extends beyond the cup. The caption, „eleven conversations, one table, ” explains the rest: eleven stories around one table.
«Partenope, ” 2024. Directed by Paolo Sorrentino, starring Celeste Della Porta, Gary Oldman, and Stefania Sandrelli. The heroine was named after the siren with whom Naples is legendarily said to have begun, which is why the poster features no faces or city—only the sea and the silhouette of a mermaid beneath its surface. She is barely visible: she emerges through the glare on the water, like a mythical foundation upon which the entire film rests. The delicate, light serif typeface remains separate from the image, not obstructing it.
«White Oleander,» 2002. Directed by Peter Kosminsky, starring Alison Lohman and Michelle Pfeiffer. The oleander is both beautiful and poisonous, and in the film, the heroine poisons her rival with it; therefore, the flowers are not mere decoration but an integral part of the plot. The portrait is superimposed over the flowers so that the face and the petals merge, as if the daughter is growing out of her mother’s history. The handwritten signature softens the poster, lending it the air of a personal diary.
«Blue Velvet, ” 1986. Directed by David Lynch. The poster is divided into two parts: at the top, red roses behind a white fence against a backdrop of blue sky, resembling a postcard from idealized America; at the bottom, a close-up of the characters on a black background.
The boundary between the two is blurred, and the bottom half seems to bleed out from the top. This is Lynch’s idea: behind the neat facade, there is always another life. The title is set in two fonts—a sans-serif and an italic—and is also divided.
Book Covers
Natalia Shcherba’s «Timekeepers» series: four books in one system. The grid and color palette are consistent across all four: black and white, the dial as the foundation, Roman numerals around the edges, and the title and author in the same font at the top or side. Only the depiction of time changes, allowing the books to be read as a single series while still being distinct at first glance.
«The Time Key.» A circle of arcs and rings spirals toward the center, like a winding spring or a key’s bit. Roman numerals are scattered around the edges, and volume number IX is placed next to the title.
«The Time Heart.» Two circles intersect to form a black lens containing a pause symbol. The arcs on the sides resemble sound waves or a heartbeat. Here, the heart represents the moment time has stopped.
«Clock Tower.» A stepped tower built from black blocks with divisions resembling a scale, topped with a round clock. The tower rises in steps, much like time is composed of seconds.
«Chronogram.» Thin rays radiate from a central Roman V. This forms a clock face, a graph, and a flash, while the density of the lines creates a sense of speed.
Sixteen Pieces in Figma: From Birthday Card to Book Series. I was most interested when the image speaks for itself, and the text merely captions it.
Ilaria Piacitelli, BMDS253
