Asterios Polyp

A Designed Story

Forgive me if if I too often begin with "as a designer I..." but that is how my brain has been naturally wired to think, it has put me in this field of work and art and I see most everything from a designer's perspective. Let it not be a surprise then that as a designer I was truly fascinated with Asterios Polyp. This story of a man looking for his other half, once having had a twin brother (who presently haunts his life in some ways) is told uniquely by simple flat images that contain an incredible amount of emotion. The line quality of the drawings, as explained by the main character even, change depending on who they are representing and the feelings they are having. Asterios has a very structured cold blue form and his sweeter wife has a softer more curvilinear warm pink form. When they get together, these two separate styles slowly mix into a middle-ground purple which takes over their forms and environments. Likewise, when they have an argument, they begin to separate. The lines slowly begin to be identifiable separately and they both end up back as they original selves, pink and blue. At the same time, their environment gets divided as well by the sketchy gestural line quality of her lines and the strict geometrical lines of Asterios.

Another thing I thoroughly appreciated as a designer is the genius use of typography so represent the personalities  of every character. Every speech bubble was different according to who was speaking, and every character had their own font and speech bubble shape. I often have to make decisions of which typeface to use by looking at what other might see as just letters and all the same and trying to figure out what they feel like and assigning them to whatever needs typesetting accordingly. It can be difficult sometimes to determine what font evokes what feeling, and in Asterios Polyp, every characters personality is showcases trough the typeface of their speech.

The successful synthesis of type and image makes for good design, and Asterios Polyp is a story not only told but designed.