Jo Sandman Catalog

Jo Sandman Exhibition Catalog for the Fitchburg Art Museum

This catalog is one of my proudest pieces of work, as it was one of the toughest to persevere through. At the beginning of my Spring 2020 semester, my Document Design Course was tasked with creating two catalogs for the Fitchburg Art Museum. There were two exhibitions that the Fitchburg Art Museum was showcasing at the time: After Spiritualism, and The Photographic Works of Jo Sandman. I was initially tasked with the After Spiritualism exhibition Catalog, however, due to the Covid-19 Pandemic, the campus was switched to virtual learning, and as a result, the Fitchburg Art Museum decided to primarily focus on the Jo Sandman catalog. This meant scrapping the work I had done from January-March and focusing on another project entirely. Working with an amazing team, we finished the exhibition Catalog, showing justice to Jo Sandman herself by matching her personality. Initially tasked with creating a 15-20 page work, the catalog ended up being over 75 pages long, a length needed to truly showcase Sandman's work to its fullest extent.


My Design Highlights

Jo Sandman: The Photographic Work Cover Page

I was responsible for designing the cover of the exhibition catalog. This cover was meant to work in both a virtual and print catalog setting. With the printed catalog, the cover design would be split down the center, allowing half of the skull to "peek" out at a reader. The theme of this catalog was "curiosity", therefore we chose this specific skull image from Jo Sandman's work as the metal pieces around the skull invite viewers in, making them want to learn more about the piece.

Pages 4 and 5

Continuing to work with the appeal of curiosity, we offset the text of the contents page to prepare the reader for a unique viewing experience.


Pages 10 and 11 (and similar pages)

Talk about drawing the reader in! Using a full bleed of Jo Sandman's "Light Memory #2" was meant to create an effect of Sandman's art "grabbing" the reader's attention.

Pages 26 and 27 (and similar pages)

As Sandman's work dealt with many small but intricate details, we made the decision to offer closeups of certain pieces, allowing viewers to see the piece as Sandman intended.

Pages 52 and 53 (and similar pages)

Taking advice from the textbook "White Space Is Not Your Enemy" by Kim Golombisky and Rebecca Hagen, we found that some pieces were significant enough to stand on their own in the catalog.