Leonarda

I developed a suite of graphic props and set dressing inspired by the story of Leonarda Cianciulli, the infamous “Soap-Maker of Correggio”, set in 1930s Italy.

Rather than recreating existing historical artefacts, I approached the project as a piece of production design world-building, imagining the graphic language of Cianciulli’s domestic environment and the objects that might populate it. The prop set includes soap packaging, labels, handwritten recipes, stationery, printed ephemera and other small details designed to suggest character, period and place.

The research focused on period-appropriate typography, printing processes, paper stocks, colour, illustration styles and vernacular graphic design, while ageing, imperfections and physical wear were considered to give each prop a sense of history and use. The intention was to create objects that could sit naturally within a frame — detailed enough to reward a closer look, but never so conspicuous that they felt designed rather than lived with.

The project explores the role of graphic props in storytelling: how a label, a handwritten note or a piece of packaging can quietly establish a character’s background, reinforce the period and contribute to the visual grammar of a set.

Developed as the final project for Annie Atkins’ Graphic Design for Filmmaking workshop in Dublin, the project allowed me to apply her approach to research-led graphic prop design while developing my own visual interpretation of the story.