I started with the illuminati/New World Order and Freemasonry conspiracy theories that essentially have the same premise; A secret society aiming to achieve a world government. Often this has an apocalyptic slant, the currency of this new Government being the 'mark of the Beast' which the bible talks about. I noted down the symbols that were appropriate and I thought were interesting. I could definitely utilize these to create some kind of mystery and intrigue around the book. I really want people to look at parts of it and go 'what could this mean?' and almost feel like they're searching for clues throughout the book. I made notes to address what I should and shouldn't include and I've concluded I could probably get away with 750-1000 words for this section.
I then looked alien conspiracies and found some glyphs and ciphers associated with the Roswell crash of 47 and the drawings of a guy called Adamski. This gave me a lot to work with as did the different patterns that crop circles make. This again gives me a wealth of strange imagery and symbolism to work with for my book. Again, I could probably do it in about 1000 words spread across two double spreads, but obviously that is subject to change, possibly dramatic change.
Then I thought I'd look at medical conspiracies which often link back to the Illuminati and secret societies, or at least the shadowy operations of the Governments. I think it's going to be a maximum of 500 words for each of the three medical conspiracies I've decided to look at. (there's more but they didn't seem particularly fascinating, plus a wealth of man made disease conspiracies which I'll just include under the AIDs umbrella.)
Assassinations and Deaths, I think I'll include this in the Illuminati section or it'll follow on from it at least and be very summative of all celebrities rather than in detail about a few because there is so so so much information and I can't include it all. In fact, the order is likely to be secret societies, medical conspiracies then hoaxes because they're all part of the same thing in a lot of cases, followed by Aliens.
Finally I looked at ways to make it interesting and fascinating based around the concept of hidden truths. I decided that it might be interesting to hide the truths throughout the books and there's a few ways I could do this, firstly I could spot varnish signs, symbols and messages over the pages making them difficult to read and hidden at first, or I could have weird fold out sections to my book, which would be difficult but possibly excellent and finally, I thought of using UV inks which I really, really like the idea of; Messages and symbols being hidden unless a blacklight is shone on them, at which point they reveal themselves. Obviously I'm going to try all of them out but I really think that the UV ink idea is really intelligent design and creates a really unique book with a unique concept that will sell at the book fair!
I thought about the way this book would be set up, i.e. the tone of voice for the booklet in normal light and then the tone of voice for the black light/spot varnish/hidden folds stuff. There's two options for the way I could go with this;
-balanced normal text and then the stuff in black light/spot varnish/hidden folds would promote the conspiracy theory as the truth.
-Anti-conspiracy theory normal text and then the unusual finish stuff would be pro-conspiracy theory
I'm not sure but I'll talk to some people about this and see what general consensus might be.
Right, now I need an action plan of what to do:
-Research why people are drawn to conspiracy theories with a series of interviews aimed at my target audience of art students.
-Research grids and start trying them out with the content I've started to select already, select appropriate typefaces etc.
-Start selecting appropriate imagery and make design decisions with it.
This gives me plenty to go away and work with and then I'll be back on here or my design context blog with findings and testers.
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