Automata Chronica

So here's my last post (for now) on the saga of the Automatons. My ambition for these guys is to make a hand-crafted, bolt-hinged metal plated book inspired by the Depero Futurista, with fold-out pages, inserts, clear overlays and other book design goodies.

My design challenge is to tell a visual story through collected ephemera, like an infographic cross between an Annual Report, Product Catalog and Advertising materials--drawn from a mishmash of vintage Russian, and European designs and Google-garbled languages.

The concept is to give a fictional, satirical account of the nearly 125-year history of the mass assembly of the Automobile but swapped out for Automatons (and eventually AI).

Here are some early sample spreads, with index tabs and a spinner.

The challenge I'm already encountering is how to tell the evolving story of robots as a utopian innovation that turns dystopian. But that's also the fun of it!

Somewhat ironically, it was at the time I was mocking up these spreads that I began tinkering with Generative AI, specifically Midjourney 3, to test whether I could use it to generate unique references or to ideate compositional ideas.

Though I haven't used any of the generative images for this project yet, its potential intrigued me and started me on an ongoing journey I'll share in upcoming posts.

So thanks for checking out my quirky robot posts! Let me know if you are intrigued to see more (new posters, bot designs, book pages, or 3D printed toys) and I'll post them as they come. Stay tuned for some Halloween-themed posts next. Boop-beep-boop!