Project Description​

A[I] To Zine was a project assigned in my Typography class. We were tasked to find typography out in the world and create a zine to showcase them. As an expansion, our professor wanted us to use Illustrator’s AI to see if we would be able to recreate our original zines. 

I was inspired by the type I saw on my walk around campus, as I explain in my zine, for two days I walked around campus paying special attention to the letters that surrounded me. Since I took the photos during my walk, most of the pictures were low quality and didn’t quite hold to a single aesthetic. In order to create cohesion, I utilized the image trace tool on Illustrator to isolate the letter I wanted to showcase, then used the color picker tool to pick colors from the original photo. My original composition came out “too clean” as if I had just found fonts and typed out the letters. In order to convey that I had taken these photos on a walk, I included a map of where I had found each letter on campus. 

As for the AI version of my zine, I wanted to keep with the same theme of travel so I asked the AI to create letters in a map. For an added contrast, I set the AI-created images on a dark background, since my original zine consisted of lighter, almost pastel-like colors. 

As for the actual construction of the zine, I played with many different types of layouts but eventually ended up with something my class called a Z-Fold. As described by the name, we essentially had the layout in a Z formation, my added touch was gluing together the unused pages for a more seamless flipping experience. This method allowed me to be able to have all my letters on one side and my “backstory” on the other.