Ram Dass: Teaching Through More Than Type

I discovered the work of mystic Ram Dass when I was recommended his seminal spiritual text, "Be Here Now". While originally only interested in what he had to say about Hindu-influenced spirituality and psychadelics, I quickly found that the Stanford-educated author's words were not in paragraph form, but rather accompanied by rich illustrations of his abstract concepts. The book is a trip through Dass' strange mind and teachings about metaphysics, but communicates through artwork. The intricate, geometric, fractal patterns on the cover of the book demonstrate the interconnectivity of the world and the delicacy of it's balance, and this theme characterizes most of the illustrations throughout the work. His "Ice Cream Cone" in the sky is one of his most famous concepts, and one of the ones I remember best. The ways he couples typography with drawings make his teachings more memorable for visually-geared learners, and are good examples of purposeful design.