Nemanja Dragojlović uses poster design as a precise, concept driven medium to surface perspectives that often remain unseen. Created in collaboration with the independent cultural and NGO sector under ARC Art and Culture Resonance Center, A View from the Side is a series of 14 posters addressing social themes pushed to the margins, from migration and artistic dissent to environmental exploitation. Built through restraint, metaphor, and careful composition, the project earned Gold in the Graphis Poster Awards 2026 for its clarity, empathy, and enduring relevance.

By Nemanja Dragojlović

The Project

The project was developed in collaboration with colleagues from the independent cultural and NGO sector as part of an initiative under ARC Art and Culture Resonance Center. The aim was to create a series of 14 key visuals for the public discussion program A View from the Side – Perspectives That Escape the Spotlight, addressing social topics often pushed to the periphery, from migration and artistic dissent to insomnia, introversion, and environmental exploitation.

The intention was to use visual design as a catalyst for reflection. Although the initiative was not fully realized due to global shifts in funding priorities and local turbulent events that rightfully claimed the public spotlight, the poster series remained as a meaningful and self-contained visual narrative.

The Process

Creatively, the brief was already rich with potential. The overarching idea, exploring perspectives outside the spotlight, naturally suggested metaphorical, distilled, and contemplative visuals. However, the production context shaped the process just as strongly.

The entire series was created before the widespread availability of AI-generated imagery, meaning that every visual had to be built manually from the ground up. There was no budget for 3D modeling, custom photography, or professional staging. Instead, the work relied on resourcefulness, stock photography, improvisation, and careful compositing.

The challenge was twofold:
• to prevent the low-budget reality from being visible in the final images
• to maintain full visual coherence across 14 different topics

This required a “work with what you’ve got” approach, an almost ascetic attitude toward developing the concept, and a focus on conceptual clarity rather than technical spectacle.

In many ways, the project became an exercise in merging the problem-solving improvisation characteristic of Balkan creativity with the structural order, restraint, and visual cleanliness more typical of Western and Northern European design traditions.

What made the process especially meaningful was the designer’s involvement from the very beginning in shaping the themes themselves. This ensured an organic alignment between idea and execution, while conversations with NGO collaborators helped anchor the visuals in authentic social context.

The Impact

Even without full public rollout, the series circulated through exhibitions and digital platforms, sparking discussion around the themes it visualized. It demonstrated that design can operate as a reflective medium, a way to make complex social tensions approachable and emotionally resonant.

For me, the project reinforced the idea that creative constraints can be generative, and that concept-driven design remains powerful even in modest production conditions.

The Creative Journey

What brings me the most satisfaction is that the project reaffirmed the intellectual and emotional dimension of design, its ability to illuminate questions, not just decorate answers.

The process pushed my boundaries by demanding both conceptual depth and technical restraint, and by requiring elegance built from limited means. I was surprised by how naturally each theme found its own visual metaphor once approached with patience and curiosity. Small decisions, spacing, balance, silence in the composition, became carriers of meaning.

What makes me proudest is that the posters retain relevance even outside their intended program. They remind me that design can give space to voices and topics that rarely occupy the center.

Ultimately, A View from the Side became a reflection of my creative philosophy: that clarity, empathy, and curiosity remain the strongest tools a designer can use, regardless of budget, technology, or scale.

About Nemanja Dragojlović

Nemanja Dragojlović is a visual communication designer and educator whose work explores cultural and psychological themes through distilled visual metaphors. With a background that spans international advertising, including his tenure as an Art Director at Leo Burnett, and academic practice, he combines conceptual rigor with cross-disciplinary insight. Currently a university professor in visual communications, Dragojlović focuses on poster design, packaging, and spatial graphics, developing design approaches rooted in clarity, empathy, and human-centered thinking.

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