Art Direction, Brand Design & Development. Artifacts for connection.

Close-up of a book cover design for Off View with various artifacts, including a face neck vessel, metal mask, and black layered vessel vertical, on a beige background. A beige rubber band holds the cover together. Across the cover is grey title text

Off View
Brand Identity;
Book Design

Off View is a catalog of artifacts not on public view; carefully selected from digital museum databases of over 500,000 logged works. A welcome unknowing; the accompanying catalog cards feature prompt words as an invitation to connect across time; to revel in what we do not know, feel more deeply about the object’s stories and artists (known or imagined to us). Between the pages, there is a set of bookmarks inspired by archaeological tools used in documenting artifacts. Off View is a self-initiated project inspired by Sydney’s personal passion for archaeology and art history.

Open catalog with text on left page and a sculpture of a female figure on right page, accompanied by a color scale. The sculpture is silver, with a hollow interior, in a gray background.
A drawing or display showcasing a Chimu face beaker from 12th to 15th century Peru, with a small card labeled "Tenderness" placed on it.
A closeup of a book page with a collage of four ancient artifacts including a carved wooden sculpture, an animal figurine, a metallic vessel, and a ceramic turtle.
An image showing 12 open book spreads. Including images of ancient artifacts, sculptures, and pottery displayed with offset paragraphs.
Photo of three bookmarks inspired by artifact cataloging tools like color and black-and-white calibration charts, and a card with the word 'REVEALED' on it, arranged on a gray surface.
Open book displaying images of ancient artifacts, including a silver mirror from 13th-15th century Peru with a figurative handle and a small metallic sculpture of a face with arms raised, with descriptive text about their origin and dimensions.
A grid of six cards with words and one image. The words are 'TENDERNESS,' 'REVEALED,' 'COUNTERWEIGHT,' 'METAPHYSICAL,' and 'ENDURANCE.' The bottom left card features an ancient artifact or carved stone with the word 'TRANSIENCE.'
Side-by-side images of an ancient ceramic face neck vessel from Colombia, Caucasia. The left image shows the vessel in black and white, with a smiling face and detailed surface pattern. The right image shows a color close-up of the vessel’s face with carved features and pattern. Both images include descriptive text about the artifact's origin, dimensions, and classification.
Open book displaying a photograph of a wooden sculpture of a human figure from Congo with a conical object on its head, surrounded by a color calibration tool-inspired bookmark and a card that reads "revealed" on a black background.


SYDNEY MAK

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