IDEA 391. Alternative Reality　Design and imagination in dangerous times: where fantasy and reality intersect

Direction by Idea
Design by LABORATORIES (Kensaku Kato, Hiroyuki Kishida)

Due to the global pandemic, our daily lives and the way we communicate has been continuously forced to change. This situation, which has halted many economic and cultural activities, has not only affected society but also graphic design, overthrowing pre-existing notions about the form and use of design. 

The first half of this feature presents the Phantom Spoon project and introduces the phantom design projects of designers from around the world, who contributed with PR materials for exhibitions and events that were either canceled or postponed due to the pandemic. By presenting each graphic along with the circumstances in which the project was discontinued as well as the story of its production, a visual archive is created of this period of global lockdown, in which parallel forms of design expression were produced.

In the second half, we interviewed newspaper design departments from different countries about information graphics in the news media under the theme of “Data Journalism and Design”. By paralleling the design expressions of different axes such as the reality that could have occurred and the one based on facts (what is believed to be), we will reflect on parallel design expressions in this time of crisis.