Navy Daily Press™

This project reinterprets Semaphore Signalling in a Week through the overlooked emotional narratives of naval life.

Presented as a score book, each page features uplifting naval songs linked to discipline, patriotism, and morale. Beneath the notation, hidden semaphore messages reveal sorrow, fear, and personal loss drawn from sailors’ experiences.

The sea acts as both setting and metaphor, concealing individual emotion beneath heroic military narratives. Through music, movement, printmaking, and coded language, the project questions how war is aestheticised and how human vulnerability is submerged within systems of power

.

……

Click on the image to view the next one

Publication  Designer                          Xiaotong Zhou


…………                        

I.

During the first week, we created zines on a topic of our choice in the studio. I recalled that the course was called ‘Narratives’, so I devised a story—about the Loch Ness Monster.

As the Loch Ness Monster was the thing I knew most about Scotland before coming to study in Edinburgh, I wanted to act as a ‘director’ and reconstruct its story. However, I’m rather slow at manual work, and after three hours in the studio, I wasn’t entirely satisfied with the result of my narrative.

Still, I was delighted to see so many excellent pieces by my classmates (o^^o)!

And so began a two-week-long project to flesh out the details of Loch Ness once I got home; I wanted to complete my first narrative experiment before embarking on the main project.

II.
Detail.









20/01/2026

We’ve each chosen our collections today.

I was lucky enough to come across Semaphore Signalling in a Week: A Method of Self-Instruction and Practice in "Sending" and "Reading", which is now a rare find.

This is a practical guide, written during the First World War and intended primarily for use during wartime, teaching the techniques and practice methods of semaphore signalling.






































Comprising elements such as envelopes, decryption cards, alphabet cards and Morse code.

III.
23/01/2026

Commencing research and information gathering

It has been found that flag signals can represent language, time and other elements and constitute a form of silent communication……

IV.
28/01/2026

Following my tutor’s advice in class,
I need to ensure that readers and followers understand what I am doing…

I have started my second sketch, brainstorming to help clarify my thoughts. Four creative directions:

1. Expressing time through flag signals


2. Naval imagery obscured by code – evoking a sense of identity

3. Naval imagery concealed – the emotions of the navy

4. Combining traffic signal flags with flag signals?

V.


Whilst travelling in Aberdeen, I stumbled upon an item from my own collection in a museum!
I felt a mysterious connection between myself and this object.

During my visit to the museum, I saw how Aberdeen tells the story of how people ‘conquered the seas’ through the creation of tools. The museum traces the history from early shipbuilding and navigation to the North Sea diving industry, oil exploration and production, and the fishing industry, displaying a range of corresponding vessels and equipment related to maritime affairs and shipping.

But it seemed to have overlooked the people…

Behind every technological advancement and every successful expedition, there were no stories of the people involved…

So I decided to focus my narrative on the emotional side of the navy.

VI.


I began designing newspapers by taking part in a sharing session organised by the Newspaper Club, where I documented the layout styles that caught my interest—creating positive and negative shapes through typography to evoke emotional responses.

By incorporating hand-drawn elements alongside digitally enhanced images into the layout, I aimed to create a sense of vibrancy.

31/1/2026

Newspaper Visual Experiment

I wanted to draw on the medium of the newspaper to convey the genuine emotions of the navy that cannot be articulated, which is why I created this special feature on the Navy Daily.

I have established two contrasting elements: A: the false rhetoric widely reported by official sources; B: the navy’s genuine sense of sorrow (the painful reality of life at sea).

Visually, these elements are partly concealed and partly highlighted.