Opaque

Opaque is a photograph that displays a student’s hand sketches layered on top of one another on a semi-transparent material called vellum. The transparent quality of this material allowed for each of the drawings in the stack to be seen with an increasing level of opaqueness. The pages that were stacked on top of one another for this image all originated from a singular project from a student, image how many papers on student could produce in one semester with 10-20 projects.

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Vellum is a semi-transparent paper material that is commonly used by architects and interior designers for drafting or preliminary sketching to communicate their concepts. While the use of a semi-transparent material is extremely useful in many situations the material of vellum has many hidden negative aspects. Even vellum that is produced with recycled materials is coated with a plasticized cotton material which makes the paper material 100% non-recyclable and non-compostable. This means that each and every sheet of vellum used ends up in a landfill. As a designer you are taught to think about and evaluate your designs impact on the environment and the waste that it could possibly create of it is demolished one day. It is time that we as designers and humans start to evaluate our own personal impacts on the environment and how we can make a positive change by moving towards the future and removing the possibility of a haunting world.