Max Francisco

Graphic Designer. Motion Designer. Photographer. Videographer. Creator of Exciting Things.


Projects

VMB
Lock Step

Cherokee Street
You Got Hurt
Mirage


(& More)


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Book Design + Bookbinding Mirage


Mirage is a curated collection of the works of Japanese photographer and filmmaker Eikoh Hosoe. Hosoe is renowned for his dramatic ability to capture the human body, and I especially wanted to use this book to highlight how his works often use scale, framing, and shadows to abstract bodily forms and transform them into landscapes.

I chose to pair these photographs with Mirage, a poem by Irish writer George William Russell. Written in first person, the poem illustrates the psyche of someone who falls in love, only to realize that their partner was an illusion.

Advised by Becca Leffel Koren
December 2024 I worked with a dramatic, minimalist typographic approach to this book, as I focused on allowing the negative space to breathe and encouraging the reader to consider the gap between what is seen and unseen. This comes to a head with the book’s cover design, which involves “blind windows” that parallel the first interior page, juxtaposing the visual and tactile experiences of the body.

I also included translucent vellum pages at certain points in the book, further driving home the idea of the “mirage” and illusion of the book. Back to Home