Visual Communication

Adam Doran

I’m a visual communicator based in Wicklow with a practice rooted in exploring place, culture, and collective experience. I’m interested in how design can reconnect us, uncover what’s been lost or overlooked, and create space for reflection and dialogue. My work often looks at how environments physical, cultural, or digital shape how we move, gather, and express identity. I’ve explored how trends reflect deeper social shifts, and how design can be used to examine the spaces we occupy, both literally and symbolically. Whether working in print or digital, I approach design as a way to ask questions, start conversations, and reimagine what’s possible. I’m drawn to process-led, hands-on methods experimenting, testing, and letting ideas unfold through making. Research plays a big role in what I do, but it’s always balanced with intuition and play. At its core, my practice is about using design to challenge assumptions, connect people, and offer new perspectives.

/ Instagram

no room to move

Dublin’s nightlife scene has been in steady decline since its peak in the 1990s. Strict licensing laws, especially those restricting venues from opening past 2 a.m., have severely limited nightlife growth. While groups like ‘Give Us the Night’ push for change, many venues have already been demolished to make way for hotels and corporate developments, reflecting shifting priorities in the city. This loss comes at a time when young people face rising levels of loneliness and social disconnection. These spaces are not escape, they are ceremony communal places where movement, music, and presence reinforce the bonds that shape us. Without them, what remains? The ‘No Room’ campaign seeks to spotlight this decline and reposition nightlife as a core part of society and not something on the exterior, but as being society itself. We have been left with a fragmented existence, stripped of the spaces where culture is lived. 

Place

Place is a project that uses folklore, poetry, and mythology to explore Ireland’s topography, focusing on four sites in County Wicklow: The Devil’s Glen, The Long Stone, Castleruddery Stone Circle, and Our Lady’s Well. These locations served as entry points into Ireland’s oral traditions and cultural heritage. Growing up in Dublin and living in Wicklow for half my life, I often felt like an outsider. This project helped me connect more deeply with the land and its stories, fostering a greater sense of belonging. Some of the featured sites are no longer marked on modern maps. To highlight their importance, I used an older map and replaced standard page numbers with coordinates for example, “F14/3” places the reader in The Devil’s Glen. Each location was broken into a microgrid, symbolizing the ongoing presence of these stories and continuing the tradition of place-based storytelling. Irish folklore often contains uncanny elements like fairies or omens, which I reflected through bronze-tinted photography reflecting archive material I have found. Typography avoids hierarchy where possible, children’s accounts appear large and green, while historical texts are justified. A chronological index closes the book, reinforcing the link between story and place.