When light disappears, all colours move towards black, yet they do not cease to exist. Visually impaired people may experience the world differently, but they remain an inseparable part of society.
Scroll to read ↓Black reduces the authority of colour and allows other forms of information—touch, sound, rhythm, distance and movement—to come forward.
The project explores how the same environment can be read through different senses, and how graphic design might move between what is seen, touched and heard. Black is used as a shared field where different routes of perception can become visible.
The research began with ordinary situations in which information exists but cannot always be reached.
A traffic light without an audible cue. An object moved from its expected place. A sound whose direction cannot be seen. A glass that silently overfills.
These moments do not describe an absence of ability. They reveal a gap between information and access.
Braille provides a six-dot structure. These dots expand into a custom English typeface, tactile markings, sound fields and moving patterns. Changes in size, density and position suggest distance, sound and movement.
FROM DOT TO LETTER — one graphic system shared by touch and sight.
Cars approach from changing directions while the white cane sweeps across the road. The sequence separates traffic, movement and sound into different moments, showing how a crossing becomes uncertain when its signals are primarily visual.
When a small object such as a key falls, a blind or visually impaired person cannot immediately confirm where it has landed. Its familiar position disappears, and the search depends on memory, sound, touch and the movement of a white cane. Across the six frames, the key becomes progressively smaller and more distant while the cane moves through the surrounding space. The sequence visualises the uncertainty of locating something that is present but no longer easy to reach.
Dots expand, contract and gather across the frame. Their scale and density describe the direction and distance of sound, allowing an unseen space to form through rhythm rather than perspective.
When filling a glass, a blind or visually impaired person may not be able to judge the remaining capacity through sight. Without an audible, tactile or automatic signal, the changing water level can be difficult to measure and may rise beyond the rim. This six-frame sequence follows the water as it gradually fills the glass, reaches the edge and finally spills across the surface, turning an everyday action into a visible study of inaccessible information.
Each animation begins as six vector frames. They are divided into equal vertical strips and interlaced into one image. A black grating placed above the print reveals one set of strips at a time.
The typeface begins with the six-dot Braille cell. Selected dots become fixed vector nodes; straight and curved paths connect them into alphabetic forms without removing the original tactile structure.
Each letter begins on the same six-dot grid. The Braille positions establish a consistent scale, spacing and point system.
Vector paths extend between the selected nodes. Curves and terminals are adjusted while the dots remain visible as the letter’s structural anchors.
The finished path is repeated and offset in one direction. These receding outlines turn a flat letter into a spatial form shared across all 26 characters.
The typeface is constructed from circular points that act as structural nodes. These nodes are connected by irregular rectangular forms, which stretch, narrow and change direction to create each stroke. Varying the scale of the circles and the width of the connecting rectangles produces the uneven rhythm, rounded joints and tactile character of the alphabet. The same method is repeated across every letter so that different forms remain part of one coherent system.
The illustrations share one production method: the scene is first drawn as clean grayscale vector linework, then filled plane by plane. Light, depth and surface are added only after the structure is clear.
The faucet begins as a flat vector silhouette. Gradients create the transition between light and dark; inner glow clarifies the thickness of the edges; highlights, shadows and subtle surface effects separate the planes. Together these steps transform a flat drawing into a form that feels both solid and slightly unreal.
The other objects follow the same sequence: draw the grayscale vector outlines, establish the main fills, then introduce gradients, highlights, shadows and texture. Reusing this order keeps every scene visually consistent while allowing each material to retain its own weight.
A single contour is generated first, then multiplied with the Repeat tool. The repeated forms shift gradually in scale, spacing and overlap, while their tonal values move from dark and dense to light and dispersed. The transition turns an invisible smell into a field that appears to expand through space.
Sound does not travel as a flat image; it expands through three-dimensional space. I first constructed a single wave contour, then used Illustrator's Repeat tool to build a dense sequence of concentric waveforms. A clipping mask contains these repeated lines inside a cube, allowing direction, distance and depth to be read as one spatial structure. The changing density of the lines suggests sound becoming stronger, weaker, nearer or farther away.
The street bollard begins as a flat vector shape. Illustrator's 3D Inflate tool gives the form its rounded volume, while depth, rotation, lighting and material settings define its surface and weight. The same process is used across the other dimensional objects in the project: a clean vector drawing is built first, then the 3D and Materials tools add volume, light and tactile character without breaking the shared visual system.
The final work is an A5 naked-spine publication with a 3D-printed cover, raised lettering, Braille dots and a sliding grating window. Reading becomes a physical action: the eye changes as the black screen is moved by hand.
All 3D-printed layers follow the same diagonal direction, creating a shared order. Their height, density and spacing shift slightly, so the surface reads as one object from a distance and reveals its internal differences through touch and side light.
DIFFERENCE IS ONE OF THE WAYSThe publication moves from touch, sound and spatial orientation into daily situations, printed motion, colour, type and the final tactile object. The sequence alternates dense information with black pauses, allowing each visual system to be read as part of one continuous argument.
10 / BEYOND THE VISIBLE
The project asks what becomes readable when sight is no longer the default. Beneath black is not emptiness, but a field of pressure, rhythm, movement and memory.