Monograph Project | Akshansh Chaudhary

The overview, or the fuller process story.

Typography is argument. It is also poetry, diagram, and symbol. I made a monograph to explore all four.

In 2018, working at Parsons School of Design under the guidance of William Bevington, I collected four series of typographic and visual design work, each with its own concept and visual theme. The Advocacy series uses typography for social commentary, pairing bold graphic choices with meaningful messages; form takes a position. The Shakespearean play series translates the themes and language of classic plays into contemporary visual forms. The word map series explores the spatial and relational side of language, mapping words and meanings across visual fields. The symbols series reduces furthest: complex ideas distilled into minimal iconic marks, where a single form has to carry everything.

Together, these four series study how typography and visual design operate across registers: rhetorical, poetic, diagrammatic, and symbolic. Each one is a different kind of reasoning. I understood, working through them, that typography is not one thing. This monograph is the record of that study.

I made the work in Illustrator, InDesign, and Photoshop. The full monograph is available as a PDF on this page, alongside individual spreads.

Deeper read

Process, decisions, and the tradeoffs behind the final form

This mode surfaces the logic beneath the surface: what the project set out to do, how it evolved, and what tensions had to be negotiated along the way.

01 — Objective

What the work needed to solve

Typography is argument. It is also poetry, diagram, and symbol. I made a monograph to explore all four.

02 — Process

How the concept turned into something testable

In 2018, working at Parsons School of Design under the guidance of William Bevington, I collected four series of typographic and visual design work, each with its own concept and visual theme. The Advocacy series uses typography for social commentary, pairing bold graphic choices with meaningful messages; form takes a position. The Shakespearean play series translates the themes and language of classic plays into contemporary visual forms. The word map series explores the spatial and relational side of language, mapping words and meanings across visual fields. The symbols series reduces furthest: complex ideas distilled into minimal iconic marks, where a single form has to carry everything.

03 — Outcome

What the final version made possible

Together, these four series study how typography and visual design operate across registers: rhetorical, poetic, diagrammatic, and symbolic. Each one is a different kind of reasoning. I understood, working through them, that typography is not one thing. This monograph is the record of that study.

Design decisions

Keep the visual language aligned with the project's core themes: Typography, Visual Design, Print.
Use the right toolchain for speed and fidelity: Adobe Illustrator, Adobe InDesign, Adobe Photoshop.
Document the process visually so the work can be understood beyond the final output.

Challenges faced

Balance experimentation with enough structure to make the idea legible.
Show the depth of the concept even when the project lives primarily as a case study.
Hold onto the original curiosity while shaping the work into something more rigorous.

Process frames