She has done acclaimed book design already during her studies at Beckmans

Beckmans application and visual communication

Cancelled summer jobs due to the corona pandemic led to a golden opportunity.

The acclaimed book Strange? which is an art book for children, came out in the autumn and is designed by Sara Solén who is currently halfway through the program Visual Communication 180 credits at Beckmans.

"The challenge was to let art books and children's books meet in one because there are two kinds of books that in design tend to be opposites," says Sara Solén about the book, which wants to encourage discussion about what art really is and show that creativity can be expressed in different ways and by different people.

Book that required playfulness in the design

When her usual summer job at an art shop did not happen due to the corona pandemic, she wanted to devote the summer holidays to something that had to do with visual communication instead. She found an ad on LinkedIn where they were looking for someone who could develop a graphic profile and identity.

"I got in touch right away and was really happy when I found out it was a publishing house because I've always liked books! First I had to make the graphic profile for the publisher where I developed a logo, colors and graphic elements. Immediately after that, I got the offer to be part of the process of making their first book – "Weird?".

Together with the book's author Louise Viman, who conducted the interviews and wrote the texts, Sara looked up the artists who would participate, chose which works to display, and chose the photographer, Kolaco Kourouma, for the portraits. Since the book is aimed at children, it was important to find playful ways to work with the texts so that the book would be attractive for children to look and read at the same time as they wanted to let the photos of the artists' works take place on the pages.

  "I solved this by placing the different text segments in separate boxes and framings and letting the artworks come to life a little bit in the book by cutting out certain motifs from them and placing in different ways in the spreads.... The actual design of the book had a tight timeline so everything went very quickly, and with that in mind, I'm happy with the result! I also received nice guidance from the designer Victoria Bergmark at the end of the process who gave me good advice in the layout work and learned a lot about print production.

I searched for Beckmans several times.

Sara applied to VK at Beckmans three times before she was accepted. The way there was via the preparatory education Image and Graphic product design at Nyckelviksskolan and courses in art history and illustration as well as the first year of the IT, Media and Design program at Södertörn University. 

"The best thing about VK at Beckmans, in addition to meeting new and like-minded people, is all the guest lectures we get during each course. They are always very educational and inspiring, I think. It can be anything from sustainability experts to font designers lecturing. The program is broad and it feels like you become a bit of a Renaissance person who knows a bit of everything (in visual communication) in the end. It's very rewarding and good no matter what I'm going to do after Beckmans.   

Sara has received nice words and praise from the participating artists in the book, which means a lot, but it has also received good ratings from book reviewers and attracted the attention of various interior design magazines.    

"This summer I'm going to work on the sequel to "Weird?", I'm looking forward to it!

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