New Journey, Same Destination
Process behind the creation of the custom covers for the Archival Recordings series of zines.
Welcome to the new Nonstndrd Process newsletter! Thank you to all of you who stayed during the transition from Substack, the move to Ghost as a platform has allowed my to combine my website with the newsletter and flex my design skills in developing the theme. On that note, lets dive in!
Archival Recordings Zine Covers
2024
This week I'm going to be sharing the process behind the creation of the custom covers I make for my Archival Recordings zines. For those of you who are unaware, I have a photography newsletter called Archival Recordings and I have put out 3 (soon to be 4) zines this year as a part of the paid tier of the newsletter. I started creating collages for the covers with the second zine, using photographs from the zine to create an abstract illustration which is then layered with the typography. It's a great way to combine both my design and photography practices so I thought I'd share a bit about how I make the designs.
It's a three part process that, like most of work, starts with a drawing. I have been creating drawings and paintings using abstract shapes for about 5 years now. In recent years I began using these compositions as a starting point for my photographic collages. I draw the initial layout in Adobe Fresco, which has really matured in the past year and integrates with Photoshop seamlessly. All of the photographs I use are from the zine's interior so the illustration serves as a type of preview for the publication.
The artwork above is from the upcoming zine titled, "Pasadena: The ArtCenter Years", which features work created during my almost 10 year employment at ArtCenter college of Design. The work is not affiliated with the school directly but was created during my time there. I explored the part of Pasadena between Colorado Blvd. and Glenarm extensively for almost 10 years and documented the area as it began to change and gentrify. The zine should be out before the end of the year, I'll provide an update in my next newsletter or you could just subscribe to Archival Recordings to get more info directly.
I also created this poster combining all three Archival Recordings collages from 2024. There may be a limited print in the near future if there is enough demand.
