If You Want to Change the World
strengths of project: use of negative space, simplicity, conceptual development
“If You Want to Change the World” is a short book that portrays Admiral William H. McRaven’s graduation speech titled, “If you want to change the world, make your bed,” using only typography. McRaven’s speech is a series of 10 life lessons that he learned during his time as a Navy Seal in the United States military as well as short stories that back them up. Each of the 10 lessons begins with the phrase, “if you want to change the world….” So, when designing this short book, the goal was to emphasize the 10 lessons. To highlight the lessons clearly, a hierarchy was created within the type by making the sentence containing the lesson much larger than the rest of the text, so that when the reader turned to a new page, he or she would see the lesson first and then read the short story supporting it. Also, because there was so much text compacted into 20 pages, it was important to create a simple yet effective design, which was accomplished by creating a hierarchy within the type, but also using negative space to help the reader move from group of text to group of text without feeling overwhelmed.
