Madagascar Cultural Book
Book Design
Deliverables:
12 - Page Cultural Booklet
Mockups
Overview
The island of Madagascar offers diverse flora and fauna and cultivates a rich culture. Madagascar is most known for its lemurs and Baobab trees. It also is home to around 30 million people and represents 18 different ethnicities. This makes it diverse in tribal heritages, customs, and religions.
Currently, many people don’t truly know a lot of in-depth knowledge on Madagascar and about the culture of the people who are native to the country. This book will dive into a few aspects of the culture surrounding Madagascar. It will be a physical display of the countries’ cuisine, clothing, and cultural events. Each spread was carefully designed with respect to major elements that are heavily inspired by Madagascar.
This book can also be viewed in its entirety on Issuu at: https://issuu.com/paytonridge/docs/payton_ridge_project2final_pages_
Process Work
Cover Designs
For the beginning few portions of my book design, I had originally put together the brown and orange cover which incorporated patterns used in Madagascar lamba garments. After progressing further, I decided that the design wasn’t strong and wanted to go back and revise it to create an improved cover. I decided to stick more closely to the color scheme that I carried through the inside of my book - green and orange. I felt this made it overall more cohesive with the other content. For the inside, I used a more interesting pattern and then incorporated a different pattern found on lambas as the borders.
Table of Contents
For the initial design, I did not consider doing illustrative details as seen in the final design. It was going to purely be photographic. After creating the other spreads and having the two techniques throughout them all, I felt to keep the cohesiveness that the TOC needed to have it too. I chose to do bamboo because Madagascar has large bamboo stalks. I originally had only overlayed them in the background. After some consideration, I decided to make my own large bamboo to hold the page numbers. I textured the bamboo and added color, shadow, and highlighting to create the desired look.
Introduction Spread
For the introduction spread, the first part describes the wildlife and nature that Madagascar is comprised of. Almost all of their reptiles and amphibian species can only be found on Madagascar and nowhere else in the world. It is believed around 165 million years ago that Madagascar was actually connected to Africa. The second part details the culture and aspects of the native Malagasy people. The country represents 18 different ethnicities which creates diverse tribal heritage, customs, and religions. For the design, I wanted to include an aspect of what Madagascar is known for. I chose to do the Baobab trees which is a popular landmark of the country. I felt like it could be interesting to include a map of Africa to display the location of Madagascar and its proximity to African continent.
Food Spread
For the food spread, I chose the national dish of Madagascar, Romazava. This food is considered a side dish and often served with rice. The stew is made up of local greens, meats, and a few vegetables. Some of the local greens include a mouth-numbing plant called Paracress (aka the Toothache Plant) - it is hard to find outside of Madagascar. For the design, I wanted to include something that is correlated to the topic of the spread. I decided to go with the rice plant overlayed in the background. I felt this was a nice contrast of illustrative and photographic content. On the right hand page I included a recipe card that can be used to create a rendition of the meal locally.
Clothing Spread
For the clothing spread, I focused on the everyday traditional wear of the native people. They use what is called a Lamba. This is highly emblematic of the Malagsy culture. It is super versatile as both men and women wear it, it is often used as a way for a mother to carry their baby, as padding to carry heavy objects on their heads, and to wrap remains of the dead during the Famadihana. For the design, I wanted to continute the theme of incoporating illustrative with photographic. I chose to do palm leaves in the background because it is a symbol often found in the patterns and designs of the lambas such as you can see in one of the photos I included.
Cultural Event Spread
For the cultural event spread, I went with a very unique funerary tradition the natives do. It is noted to be a fairly recent custom. During this ceremony, people bring the bodies of their ancestors from the family crypts and re-wrap them in fresh cloth and rewrite their names on the outside cloth so they will always be remembered. It is based upon their belief that the spirits of the dead finally join the world of their ancestors after the body’s complete decomposition and appropriate ceremonies which may take many years. It is conducted once every 5-7 years. For the design, I wasn’t sure what to do illustrative wise so I ended up choosing a native periwinkle flower as flowers usually have associations with funerals - so it seemed like a fitting choice.
Final Covers
To touch on the back cover specifically, I included a brief statement from my intro spread to give the reader a brief look into the book. I overlayed an orange rectangle across the middle to pull the text abit more out of the background. Picture wise, I added the Madagascar map with the outlined provinces/regions that can also be found on the introduction spread.