Typographic Interpretation of “The Pedestrian” by Ray Bradbury

Abstract

“The Pedestrian” is the short story by Ray Bradbury about a night in the life of Leonard Mead. Set in a dystopian 2053, Mead is walking alone through his neighbourhood when he is confronted by a police car. After struggling to understand his reasoning behind going for a walk, the police car arrests Mead, explaining that he is being sent to a psychiatric facility. This final design is playing off of the intrusive nature of the car’s speech. It is very aggressive in its tone as compared to Mead’s soft descriptive nature. When approaching this project, it was apparent that the car’s dialogue must be all-caps and sans-serif. On the other hand, Mead is a writer by profession, being very descriptive and poetic in his narration, calling for a soft serif with plenty of rags, creating fluid shapes. The two types of dialogue are very different to represent the difference between human nature and that of a robotic car. The car is not engaged in the conversation, shown by being right-aligned, as if they were two separate monologues. The small caps within the body text represent the cold nature of the scene the reader is placed in.

The Background imagery is an abstract rendering of headlights to show that car’s presence. The car’s speech changes in value depending on its volume, getting dark the softer its tone is.

Department: Design

Faculty Mentor: Constanza Pacher