The introduction of the pill was a huge milestone for women in Aotearoa. Before its introduction in 1961, contraception had been unreliable, hard to access and expensive. Information surrounding contraception and sexual health was not only taboo but also legally banned in print material with intent to share. The pill: A milestone in Aotearoa’s contraceptive history, uncovers lesser-known contraceptive milestones.
The spiral binding is a cheap and available form of binding. If this book was to be mass produced, it would be accessible to more people as it is a low-cost way of binding. The title is embossed on the white cover, being subtle and slightly hard to read, encasing all the information held inside. It folds out to reveal an explosion of side effects of the pill on the inside cover. This reflects the fold out sheet of side effects that comes in a box with the pill.
The first pill to arrive in Aotearoa was Anovlar. The packaging was informed by the medical packaging design of Swiss designer Geigy in the late 1950s. The typeface used in this packaging was Akzidenz Grotesk, selected to be legible to avoid medication mix-ups. I used Aktiv Grotesk, a similar typeface to nod to this. I layered the typeface Twopoint H over Aktiv Grotesk to further speak to the censoring of contraception information. I used Söhene mono for text in graphs and tables as a mono spaced typeface works well for information ordered in columns and rows. As an added titbit, this typeface was designed in memory of Akzidenz Grotesk!
As the book goes along, there are more spreads showing information surrounding how the pill works and contraception effectivity, reflecting how as time went on, information surrounding contraception became more accessible.