Tina Mackenzie
BDes (Hons) Graphic Design
How To Escape Purgatory
How To Escape Purgatory looks at the idea of purgatory and how this is comparable to certain phases of life. Purgatory is a realm of the afterlife in which the souls go to be purged of sin and become worthy of glory. Purgatory can be interpreted especially on a surface level as a long, tedious, hopeless, and trialling place; however, purgatory is a realm of purification and has an inevitable end. Sometimes life can feel monotonous and hopeless, like you’re stuck in purgatory. This project aims to encourage that although life may feel purgatorial, purgatory itself has an end and so too will these phases of life.
How To Escape purgatory looks at using the idea of purgatory to convey the encouragement that there is always an escape to the purgatorial phases of life.
This project is conveyed as a reading plan pack, complete with reading material such as Dante’s Purgatorio, an informative guide book, a poetry book as well as a journal, a pen, and a couple of bookmarks.
One aesthetic choice is the use of a dark inky style connotative on the idea of purgatory and the dead, which is used to contrast the other visual identity which is that of a sunrise.
The journal offers reading prompts to guide the user through the reading material and convey the message of the project.
Some information on purgatory is provide with illustrations fitting the idenitiy of the dark inky style.
The poetry book takes the reader through the journey of a soul in purgatory, starting out in the thick of purgatory.
The story progresses into the protagonist observing a butterfly who is supposed to represent the idea of a soul in its pure and purged form.
