Metaphorm is a publication that treats design as a vessel for memory, emotion, and the resonance of place. Conceived as a self-initiated project, it operates outside commercial constraints and explores how photography, literature, and layout can merge into a single, immersive storytelling experience. Metaphorm II (same as Volume I) is an oversized 50×70 publication—closer to an exhibition on paper than a conventional magazine—documenting a journey through Vietnam and the emotional weight it carried.
Vietnam is a land shaped by contrasts: lush landscapes marked by the scars of war, a vivid present coexisting with unspoken wounds. Walking through this landscape, the experience felt strangely familiar, echoing historical traumas within the designers’ own cultural memory. That emotional connection became the foundation of Metaphorm—an attempt not to depict Vietnam literally, but to translate what it felt like to be there.
Photography drives the project’s visual language. Shot instinctively on an iPhone, the images are treated not as documentary material but as poetic fragments mirroring the way memory surfaces and dissolves. Faces, gestures, bodies, and landscapes are combined with Vietnamese poetry, excerpts from local texts, and pieces of written testimony. Through the interplay of image and word, Metaphorm builds a collage of impressions: a world both unfamiliar and strangely intimate.
The oversized format amplifies this emotional impact. The scale allows photographs to breathe, leaving large negative spaces that function as pauses—moments of silence that hold as much meaning as the images themselves. Layouts shift between structure and abstraction, reflecting the tension between clarity and fragmentation that defines collective memory.
Typography becomes a second voice. Vietnamese poetry appears quietly in the margins or disrupts the page with force, shaping the rhythm of each spread. The book’s visual structure continuously challenges the borders between photography, literature, and graphic design, creating a multidisciplinary field where the three become inseparable.
Metaphorm ultimately stands as an artifact of remembrance—a personal yet universal meditation on place, trauma, resilience, and the unseen layers of history. It has also been recognized for its artistic merit, earning a place in the permanent collection of MA-g The Museum of Avant-Guard in Switzerland.