What is it Actually Like?
What Is It Actually Like? is a research-led editorial publication collecting first-hand perspectives on the university experience, from offer holders and first years through to graduating students and those who have already moved on. Built around 21 original interviews, the project confronts the gap between what university is marketed as and what it actually costs, teaches and leads to, against a backdrop of a shrinking graduate job market, rising student debt and a creative industry in structural change.
Publication Design
The publication is typographically led, using type as both structure and expressive response. Each interview is treated as material to design around rather than content to simply present, with typographic decisions carrying the tone, weight and personality of each contributor's voice. Format, paper weight and typeface were each chosen in relation to what they communicate beyond appearance, with the aim of producing something that reads as seriously and honestly as its content.
The main publication sits alongside a set of 21 individual interview booklets, one per contributor, which together form an archive of distinct perspectives brought into conversation with each other. The outcome sits between an anthology, a manual and a critical document, honest about the difficulties, specific about the realities, and designed to be held alongside the glossy official materials it quietly pushes back against.
A collaboration with Archibald Whiting.
