NIHILIST’S
COFFEE TABLE
Senior Capstone
NIHILIST’S
COFFEE TABLE
COFFEE TABLE
Senior Capstone
SPRING 2025
CAPSTONE
BOOK DESIGN/BRAND IDENTITY
Cynical or not, I believe coffee table books are not really designed to be read, only flipped through. So I chose to design for this exactly. My two books: “Portrait of Joe”and “Money” featured imagery from the Visible Human Project depicting a death row inmate whose body was systematically sliced and photographed, and an AC-130 performing an “Angel of Death” missile display screenprinted in batches on hundreds of counterfit $100 bills. For additional branding, I screenprinted canvas coffee bags, and totes with the set of Joe’s Mugshot.
Each book was hand fabricated, despite having to edit and manage hundreds of ordered images and simeltaneously. This scale would not have been possible without the many javascript files I created to be able to quickly cycle from digital (Adobe Suite, touch designer, image dithering etc) and and back to analogue (lasercutter, darkroom, embossing press)
This capstone enabled me to research and explore the very subjects that drew me towards visual work, and designs ability to comment on both the strange beauty of the macabre, or unspoken, and the extremes of humanity as a collective.
(Covers + Cutting positive/negative letterforms for debossing)