OUTWHERE

As humans, we tend to have a fascination with antiquity, the mysteriously left behind, and are drawn to exploration and a feeling of fear. Abandoned spaces hold all of these aspects and can be found scattered across communities globally, each unique to the cultures that once inhabited them. They are places for generations both old and new to reminisce on memories, question the unknown, and even create new purposes for these sites.

 

OUTWHERE is a collaborative collection that consists of a large, tabloid size publication covering topics such as the psychology behind why people desire to visit abandoned spaces, the causes as to why these places are left behind, and how these sites live on through human memory and modern-day experiences. The collection also consists of four objects: a travel keychain featuring the ten “commandments” to abide by when visiting these spaces, a foldable poster, an album featuring visualized soundwaves from recordings taken in abandoned sites, and three snapchat filters that can be used to record personal experiences. 

 

The packaging itself is large in size, being meant to be viewed, but then left behind or abandoned for the next person to discover. The triadic layout of the publication and the motion of turning each page emulates the idea of discovery, uncovering new information, and exploration. Some pages when flipped feature an inverted version of the same graphic on its back, conveying the idea of faded memory or the past lingering from the present. In this collection’s entirety, the design team strives to bridge the gap between generations that once inhabited these places and current-day explorers, who purely see what is just left behind. The content marries the past and present experiences of different people together, giving a timelessness to these places.