Mock up of the map of the Island of Seven Sins made in Adobe Illustrator
The Island of Seven Sins
World Building/Graphic Design/Illustration/3D Modelling
“The Island of Seven Sins” is a fictional island based in the real world where they follow their own non-theistic religion called the Temple of Seven Sins.
This was one of my second year projects at uni where we were given a belief to explore. My group were assigned the belief "Evil is Good" and from this we had to research real subcultures and create a new fictional group.
The Temple of Seven Sins is loosley based off of the real world Satanic Temple, a non-theistic religeous movement that "fights the percieved intrusion of christian values on American Politics" and uses satanic imagery as part of their religeon. The symbolism and iconography of the Temple of Seven Sins is based off of the Christian Seven Deadly Sins and at the centre of their belief system is the idea that good cannot exist without evil because of the human condition. The sins are perceived as being a spectrum. For example the spectrum of Wrath has love and courage on one end of the spectrum and anger, grief and depression on the other end of the spectrum and Gluttony has restraint and moderation on one end of the spectrum and overconsumption and addiction on the other.
The seven sins are treated like deities (similar to the Ancient Roman and Greek gods), each one has its own temple, celebrations, rituals and followers.
A mock up of The Temple of Seven Sins Magazine Spread which profiles each of the seven temples, the animals that are associated with them, their colour scheme and the spectrums which they represent. The animal heads were made using Adobe Illustrator, the layout was done using Adobe InDesign.
The sins are celebrated but also contemplated within each temple. For example the Temple of Gluttony hosts an annual food and drink festival which allows people to celebrate gluttonous behaviour. Meanwhile the same temple also offers support to those who struggle with overeating/over-drinking and addiction. The aim of the religion is to confront and meditate on ones ‘sins’ as oppose to suppressing them as a means of finding a healthy relationship with them.
A mock up of a Promotional Poster to advertise the islands annual food festival ‘Glut Fest’ where people celebrate gluttony. The ‘Glut Fest’ calligraphy was hand drawn using whipped cream and a piping bag with nozzle. This was then photographed using a DSLR camera and then edited together in Adobe Photoshop.
This was a really fun project! I particularly enjoyed researching the Satanic Temple and the Christian Seven Deadly Sins (and virtues) to come up with a new fictional group. While the group is fictional, basing it on a fictional island located in the real world allowed us to think about how such a group would fit in, and interact with the 'real world'. For example, how would outsiders percieve this religeon? If it existed in the real world would there be tourism and what would that look like? How would tourism impact the islanders? etc. It was really fun to do a deep dive into all of these aspects.
If you want to read the research paper that I wrote alongside the project you can check it out here!
A spread depicting objects related to the Temple of Seven Sins that are commonly found amongst the locals. Illustrations made in Procreate.
Temple of Greed Coin 3D Model made using Rhino. When a baby is born on the island, the temple of Greed would gift a solid gold coin with the child’s name, date of birth and blood group embossed on it.