ABOUT

"Emptiness words"a picture book Master's degree graduation project 

In 2019 I graduated Academy of Fine Arts in Katowice with my final project being picture book about the constant struggle that is living with depression and the importance of mental health.

Depression is a worldwide problem that is affecting around 350 million people globally. It is not simply an issue of being sad but a serious condition that is causing over 800 000 deaths every year. Being a depression survivor myself I wanted to tackle this issue with my artistic sensibilities and show my personal struggle through art of illustration. A deeply personal picture book that tries to tackle the fight that Person suffering of Depression have to go through every day.  The minimalist illustrations are first hand revelations of the afflicted person, his internal struggle with lack of motivation, life drive or happiness. This book tries to talk about this subject of mental illness, without unnecessary moralizing, but rather showing it as a common but unseen issue. 

The planing phase

The initial thought was to create a series of posters in my usual illustration style 
 but that quickly evolved into something more interesting and out of my comfort zone. 
 The style of the project was heavily inspired by the children’s book “Black on white” by Janusz Stann and Marcin Brykczyński, I tried to capture the play with black and white flat palletes  

The title

Emptiness words are the "helpful advices" that people suffering from depression usually hear when they try to be open about their condition. to "get a grip and get over it"   

The posters 

besides the picture book I reformatted some of the illustrations on poster format in order to create a campaign talking about the issue   

Links 

Go over to my Behance profile to read the entire book and see all the posters in higher resolution