For Alec Figuracion the sequence, rhythm, and pacing of a film is akin to that of a book

Alec Figuracion’s practice sits at the intersection of graphic design and film. This relationship between the moving and the static, the printed and the ephemeral is a conundrum that has shaped his creative focus to the finding of “porous relationships between these two mediums”, he tells us.

The filmmaker’s great love is book design, and, whenever Alec is designing a publication, it’s always with cinema in mind: “I see the page, the spread, or the book as another medium where I could transpose what I have learned and known about film—sequence, rhythm, and pacing,” he says. In publishing projects like Tenderness Montage he has attempted to translate the filmic montage into a sequence of printed pages. Meanwhile, the artists 480-page edition of his thesis research from his MFA in graphic design at RISD titled Soft Procedures is accompanied by a short film, and his video essay Sugar Glass, made in homage to his grandmother, sees images move across a split screen as if found in a spread of a book. One medium is never quite separate from the other, but by translating films into print the designer has always found a way to reframe moving images into something we can consume at a slower pace. “Holding a designed book to me is like holding narrative time in your hands, and you can linger on a moment as long as you want,” he says.

Building narratives across both these formats has made the designer “a freer, more versatile visual storyteller”, Alec shares. “I’ve always wanted to explore the many different ways I could tell stories, and I think graphic design provided me with the possibilities.” Alec’s print work has always been shaped by all the films he’s seen – the work of Malaysian film director Tsai Ming-Liang and Taiwanese screenwriter Apichatpong Weerasethakul leaving the most long-lasting impressions. “I also draw inspiration from graphic designers who turned to video for their art practice such as Sara Cwynar,” he says.

The thing that Alec is always trying to pull out the screen and on to the page is not just films storytelling abilities but “its capacity to move you” and the kind of “visual poetry” the screen allows. “Cinema is such a great vessel for not just forwarding ideas, but also feelings and atmosphere. I try to imbue this in to all my graphic design work”, he ends.