After seven weeks and over $100 of supplies, I created this interactive, spinning poster that raises awareness for the "cool" side of dyslexia. As an ambigram, rightside up it reads correctly, but upside down in reads phonetically: "disleksia." I wanted to do it in a graffiti style because its "creative chaos" feel is what we dyslexics go through sometimes, and I wanted to express it visually for those who don't understand the experience.
The board circle spins on a lazy Susan and changes colors, misspells, and the letters and paint are even at different heights to create a constantly changing, moving piece. Each piece was made of spray-painted foam core cut out by hand and by laser. The entire poster stands at 30" by 30" and was submitted as a midterm grade for my masters of graphic design degree.
Dyslexia exists because 10% of the world interprets information differently from those without the so-called disability. Dyslexics are non-verbal, non-linear thinkers who process information through pictures instead of words or concepts. This leads them to become very intuitive and perceptive because they can assemble and disassemble objects and ideas in their minds without having to touch or see them.
This intuition works great as infants, but by the time we dyslexics start school, non-sensical symbols people call "letters" mean little to us, since they don't work to create a visual picture. Our minds react in a way Dr. Ron Davis (author of "The Gift of Dyslexia") describes as "disorientation," and it breaks apart the words and letters in an attempt to reassemble them into a picture that makes sense. Because they're letters and not parts of an image, the word only gets jumbled, and it confuses us dyslexics until we sometimes get physically sick.
The cool factor, however, is that our unique mind helps us be exceptionally creative, intuitive, and quick to learn in a hands-on environment. Designers and artists are often dyslexic, but dyslexics can also thrive in careers such as mechanical engineers, architectures, athletes, mechanics, filmmakers, and even authors (assuming they can get passed the spelling struggle). In fact, almost any career that's hands-on, creative, or involves learning how things work together is a career we dyslexics can excel in.
For example, Walt Disney, Albert Einstein, Henry Ford, Alexander Graham Bell, Leonardo Davinci, Winston Churchill, Hans Christian Anderson, and many more famous individuals were known to be dyslexic. And as Dr. Ron Davis says in his writings, they weren't famous *despite* their dyslexia, they were famous *because of* their dyslexia. The way they processed information helped them create and discover the very things that made them successful.
While yes, dyslexia can read to academic struggles, it often proves to be a gift in real life. The poster I made was an attempt to visually bring to life what a dyslexic processes in fast, subconscious images. While it's impossible to successfully share our minds with the rest of the world, I hope that this poster shows the "cool factor" of dyslexia and how it can be a creative tool to accomplishing your dreams.
