Public Domain Collection: A Visual Archive Project
Public Domain Collection: A Visual Archive Project
While researching photos for encyclopedia covers, I stumbled upon a wealth of hidden gems in the public domain. As I explored, the more I discovered how these images, rich in history and context, tell their own fascinating stories.
🌌 SCIENCE & NATURE
1. Coral/Constellation
Life above and below—two ecosystems drifting in pattern and complexity.
2. Satellite View / Jellyfish
Surveillance and fragility, both suspended in vastness.
3. Botanical Print / Crater Map
Organic and geological growth traced by human hands.
👤 HUMAN STORIES
4. Woman at Typewriter / Swimmer
Labor and leisure, both shaped by time’s quiet rhythms.
5. Children in Uniform / Toy Robot
Innocence meets invention—future dreams molded by the past.
6. Protest Crowd / Girl with Book
Collective memory and private thought: quiet power and loud resistance.
🤹 PERFORMANCE & PLAY
7. Juggler / Lab Rat in Maze
Controlled chaos—experiments in balance and absurdity.
8. Gymnast / Early Jetpack
Bodies in motion, futures imagined.
9. Cat in Costume / Carnival Poster
Theatrical selves, playful identities. Who’s watching who?
🌍 EXPLORATION & MAPPING
10. Mountain Terrain / Star Chart
Mapping the unknown—above, below, and within.
11. Ocean Currents / Antique Compass
Wandering with purpose: the tension of drift and direction.
12. Aerial City / Ancient Manuscript
Architecture of thought, grid of memory.
Public Domain Collection Magazines (#1, 2, & 3): A Visual Archive Project
It is part design experiment, part historical excavation—remixing cultural memory through bold color palettes, typographic overlays, and intentional juxtaposition.
This project is an exploration of what it means to inherit images we didn’t take and stories we didn’t witness. Drawing from open-access collections—NASA, USGS, LOC, and global archives—I aim to celebrate the absurd, the beautiful, the overlooked, and the haunting—while asking how design can help us re-see the past.
The themes revolve around our shared pursuit of meaning—through science, nature, storytelling, and innovation. By reworking archival imagery, the project explores human curiosity, memory, and creativity across time, drawing connections between the personal and the universal.
Themes & Topics:
Science & Nature: Satellite imagery, astrophotography, botanical illustrations, and geological maps speak to a fascination with the natural world and humanity’s attempts to document and understand it. Images from NASA and USGS highlight planetary beauty, spatial data, and climate patterns, recast in radiant, high-contrast tones.
Feminine Histories & Gender Roles: Several compositions center women in historical or domestic contexts—often juxtaposed with bold typographic phrases. These challenge the roles women were traditionally assigned, presenting them with a kind of quiet resistance or wit (e.g., women in laboratories, typing pools, or in early athletic competitions).
Technological Exploration: vintage tech, radio labs, early computers, astronauts, and aircraft—underscoring human innovation. These aren’t just nostalgic nods but remixed celebrations of curiosity, invention, and our quest for progress.
Sociopolitical Commentary: Juxtapositions between civil rights-era children, propaganda posters, and early 20th-century portraits suggest an archival reckoning with race, identity, labor, and power. The use of modern, assertive color blocks and phrases reframes these artifacts, adding subtle critique or reflection.
Whimsy & Absurdity: Some images lean playful or surreal—a cat in a tuxedo, jugglers, synchronized swimmers, or oddball portraits—offering moments of levity or ironic reinterpretation of archival formality.
Geographic & Cultural Diversity: The archive pulls from global sources—arctic ice, Pacific atolls, Roman ruins, and mid-century American suburbs.
Design Language & Approach
Color as Commentary: The neon, duotone treatment elevates and recontextualizes each image. This isn’t colorization for realism—it’s a design decision that plays with mood, memory, and message.
Typography as Curation: Short captions in sans-serif type hover over images like curatorial notes. Their placement and phrasing hint at meaning, sometimes poetic, sometimes blunt—encouraging the viewer to make connections.
Diptych Format: Many images are presented in pairs, forming a visual dialogue. Whether thematic or purely visual, these pairings offer narrative and compositional rhythm.
Concept & Goals
Remix the Archive:
To reinterpret historical public domain imagery through a contemporary visual language—inviting new meaning and dialogue.Use Design as Commentary:
Color, type, and image pairing are used intentionally to shift tone, amplify themes, or inject critique, humor, or beauty.Bridge the Past & Present:
Create resonance between forgotten moments and modern sensibilities—exploring gender, science, absurdity, power, and play.
Visual Language
Color Palette:
Neon duotones and split-tone overlays create emotional intensity and visual contrast, making the old feel new again.Typography:
Clean, sans-serif typographic overlays act as curatorial “whispers,” annotations, or poetic inserts. Often minimal, but loaded with subtext.Diptych Format:
Pairings function like conversations—between science and humanity, labor and leisure, beauty and absurdity.
Selected Themes
ThemeVisual ElementsScience & NatureNASA imagery, galaxies, coral reefs, botanical specimens, geologic formationsFeminine HistoriesWomen in labs, typewriters, swimsuits, space—paired with contextual phrasesTechnological FuturesEarly computers, aircraft, satellites, gym equipment, radar mapsCultural CommentaryCivil rights photos, vintage propaganda, lost childhoods, strange portraitsPlay & AbsurdityCircus acts, cats in suits, jugglers, surreal fashionGlobal TopographyRemote islands, river deltas, city maps, mountain terrain
Tools & Process
Tools: Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign
Sources: Library of Congress, NASA Earth Observatory, USGS, British Library, New York Public Library
Process: Curated images → Color manipulation → Typography overlay → Layout in diptych spreads
🌌 SCIENCE & NATURE
1. Coral/Constellation
Life above and below—two ecosystems drifting in pattern and complexity.
2. Satellite View / Jellyfish
Surveillance and fragility, both suspended in vastness.
3. Botanical Print / Crater Map
Organic and geological growth traced by human hands.
👤 HUMAN STORIES
4. Woman at Typewriter / Swimmer
Labor and leisure, both shaped by time’s quiet rhythms.
5. Children in Uniform / Toy Robot
Innocence meets invention—future dreams molded by the past.
6. Protest Crowd / Girl with Book
Collective memory and private thought: quiet power and loud resistance.
🤹 PERFORMANCE & PLAY
7. Juggler / Lab Rat in Maze
Controlled chaos—experiments in balance and absurdity.
8. Gymnast / Early Jetpack
Bodies in motion, futures imagined.
9. Cat in Costume / Carnival Poster
Theatrical selves, playful identities. Who’s watching who?
🌍 EXPLORATION & MAPPING
10. Mountain Terrain / Star Chart
Mapping the unknown—above, below, and within.
11. Ocean Currents / Antique Compass
Wandering with purpose: the tension of drift and direction.
12. Aerial City / Ancient Manuscript
Architecture of thought, grid of memory.
Public Domain Collection Magazines (#1, 2, & 3): A Visual Archive Project
This project is an exploration of what it means to inherit images we didn’t take and stories we didn’t witness. Drawing from open-access collections—NASA, The Library of Congress (loc.gov), the National Archives, and more. The themes revolve around our shared pursuit of meaning—through science, nature, storytelling, and innovation. By reworking archival imagery, the project explores human curiosity, memory, and creativity across time, drawing connections between the personal and the universal.
Some Themes & Topics:
Science & Nature: Satellite imagery, astrophotography, botanical illustrations, and geological maps speak to my fascination with the natural world and humanity’s attempts to document and understand it. Images from NASA highlight planetary beauty, spatial data, and climate patterns, recast in radiant, high-contrast tones.
Technological Exploration: vintage tech, radio labs, early computers, astronauts, and aircraft—underscoring human innovation. These aren’t just nostalgic nods but remixed celebrations of curiosity, invention, and our quest for progress.
Whimsy & Absurdity: Some images lean playful or surreal—a cat in a tuxedo, jugglers, synchronized swimmers, or oddball portraits—offering moments of levity or ironic reinterpretation of archival formality.
Geographic & Cultural Diversity: The collections pull from global sources—arctic ice, Pacific atolls, Roman ruins, and mid-century American suburbs.
Design Language & ApproachColor as Commentary: The neon, duotone treatment elevates and recontextualizes each image, a design decision that plays with mood, memory, and message.
Typography as Curation: Clean, sans-serif typographic overlays act as curatorial “whispers,” annotations, or poetic inserts. Often minimal, but loaded with subtext.
Diptych Format: Pairings function like conversations—between science and humanity, labor and leisure, beauty and absurdity.
Concept & Goals
Remix the Archive:
To reinterpret historical public domain imagery through a contemporary visual language—inviting new meaning and dialogue.Use Design as Commentary:
Color, type, and image pairing are used intentionally to shift tone, amplify themes, or inject critique, humor, or beauty.Bridge the Past & Present:
Create resonance between forgotten moments and modern sensibilities—exploring gender, science, absurdity, power, and play.
Visual Language
Typography:
Clean, sans-serif typographic overlays act as curatorial “whispers,” annotations, or poetic inserts. Often minimal, but loaded with subtext.Diptych Format:
Pairings function like conversations—between science and humanity, labor and leisure, beauty and absurdity.
Tools & Process
Tools: Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign
Sources: Library of Congress, NASA Earth Observatory, USGS, British Library, New York Public Library
Process: Curated images → Color manipulation → Typography overlay → Layout in diptych spreads
Public Domain Remix: A Visual Archive Project
Curated collection and reinterpretation of public domain images
This project is a curated visual archive that breathes new life into historical and scientific public domain imagery through colorization, juxtaposition, and modern typographic overlays. Sourced from a range of open-access repositories—including NASA, the Library of Congress, and various photographic archives—each image is selected for its cultural, scientific, or emotional resonance.
The collection spans subjects as diverse as early 20th-century fashion, natural phenomena, space exploration, and sociopolitical moments. Each image is enhanced with contemporary graphic treatments: color overlays, contrasting palettes, and clean, bold typographic labels that provide context without overwhelming the visual narrative. The result is a dynamic recontextualization that bridges past and present—inviting viewers to rediscover forgotten moments through a modern design lens.
This project explores questions of memory, authorship, and the democratization of imagery, while also functioning as an experiment in visual storytelling, historical preservation, and design intervention.
