POLYMODE
BOOK DESIGN
About The Project
Titled "The Fiction of Protection,” our final project is designed to serve as a culmination of ARRAY’s LEAP initiative by spotlighting the other eight artistic works commissioned to confront police brutality through activist storytelling. This coffee table book is a visual meeting place for continued conversation around the issue of excessive force and killing of Black people by police. Polymode’s process included finding the tone of voice, incorporating the intended form as a mode of thought, and interpreting those ideas through cover design, paper selection, typography, and page layouts. By centering connections and reflecting on historical lineages during the book’s development, the team was led to build a time capsule of world events between 1999 and 2020 as well as news media headline collages as a backdrop to the many Black lives taken by police.
The Artist
Polymode is a bi-coastal, queer, and minority-owned graphic design studio founded by Silas Munro and Brian Johnson. The team leads contemporary graphic design through poetic research, learning experiences, and collaborating with innovative businesses, community-based organizations, and clients in the cultural sphere. Their specialties include books, curation, education, exhibition, identity, interfaces, publications, visual design, websites, workshops, and writing. With core principles of visual expression, media adaptability, and typographic function, Polymode connects creative expression with the complexity of designed systems and lived experience.
Previous book design projects include Henry Taylor B Side, Willie Smith: Street Couture, Mark Bradford: Tomorrow is Another Day, Decolonizing Design, Grief and Grievance, A Movement in Every Direction, The Art Institute of Chicago Field Guide to Photography and Media, and Sargent Claude Johnson.
Silas Munro
Brian Johnson
Design Team:
Silas MunroBrian JohnsonMichelle LambSadeem YacoubSpecial thanks to the book’s creative contributors:
PORTRAITS & ILLUSTRATIONS
Allegra Jones
Original illustrations of Amadou Diallo, Aiyana Stanley-Jones, Kenneth Chamberlain Sr., Yvette Smith, Philando Castile, Elijah McClain and Breonna Taylor
allegrajones.com
Sadia B. Alao
Portrait of Reggie Black at Blagden Alley in Washington, DC
sadiaalao.com
Sydney A. Foster
Portrait of W.J. Lofton at Goat Farm Atlanta
sydneyafoster.com
Bexx Francois
Portrait of Polymode at ARRAY Creative Campus in Los Angeles
bexxfrancois.com
Yekaterina Gyadu
Portrait of Ra-Re Valverde at her home studio in New York
ygyadu.com
Aundre Larrow
Portraits of Steven Irby at TUFT, Francesca Harper at Ailey Studios, and Julian Stephen at McCarren Park in New York
aundrelarrow.com
Sheilby Macena
Portrait of Jocelyn Jackson at Robert W. Crown Memorial State Beach in Alameda, CA
sheilby.com
Stacy Thomas
Portrait of Delita Martin at Black Box Press Studio in Huffman, TX
mossyandtea.org
PRE-PRESS
Tony Manzella | Echelon | echeloncolor.com