Truism Zine
2019
The task for this project was to write a truism based on an important lesson I've learned in my life, or a belief that I hold that has served myself and others positively. I was also tasked with writing a brief paragraph that explains the origin of the truism.
design constraints
This truism was required to be designed in the format of a zine, an 11x17 inch paper folded into eight squares with a cut in the middle. The term "zine" refers to a small, handmade magazine--hence the short-form term.
In addition, the zine was to be printed on a Risograph, which is a specialized printer limited to only two, yet highly concentrated, ink colors.
As for the design itself, our class was limited to using a custom chromatic typeface (a design effect achieved through stacking two layers of typefaces over each other) and abstract imagery as background.
Below is my experimentations with the abstract imagery and the chromatic typeface, respectively.
concepting
Below are my experimentations with creating a chromatic typeface that fit the theme of my truism - which was that "forgiveness is not mandatory". With this theme in mind, I chose to have both my type and the background imagery become more chaotic as the reader progressed further in the pages, with each element becoming more unraveled and separated.
To create this visual chaos, I used the same repeating stacking effect on my imagery as I did with my typography. For each background graphic, I tried to use imagery that was reminiscent of contrasting themes of forgiveness and rejection.
For the color palette, since I was limited to only two colors for the zine, I decided to use two contrasting, or complementary, colors. The strong disparity between the green and the blue further reinforces the theme of incongruent rejection and forgiveness.
final printed zine
And below are my final mockups of the front and back covers.
project goal
The ultimate goal with the Truism Zine was to create visually engaging design, in both typography and imagery, surrounding a lesson learned from personal experience--with each page serving a specific purpose to draw the reader's attention further into the zine as they read.