2020 COVID Survival Guide
publication/zine
The “COVID Survival Guide” project was a creative means of documenting my frustrations with the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent quarantine period. Mississippi officially went into lockdown in the latter half of my sophomore year, a period originally intended to be the jumpstarting of my graphic design career within the USM design department. However, after passing sophomore review, USM transitioned to online classes. I initially thought this would be a temporary setback if not an inconvenient end to the semester, but I soon found that online learning would be more permanent than I had hoped.
This journal takes the form of a zine so as to allow for more experimentation with layout and image treatment. I wanted to warp the content manually, so most all the graphics featured are bitmaps made from scans that were manually manipulated.
I wanted the warp effect to speak to the confusion and disjointedness I felt during my time attempting to create work during the virtual learning period. I also wanted to make use of the gritty textures and shadows that scanning images often produces to reinforce the idea that this was a handmade, grungy “zine” and not a professional and proper publication.
The narrative is divided by month as each month both stood out distinctively in my mind and seemed to blend together in my recollection. Each section divider is appropriately distorted and messy to signify that my feelings of confusion were only progressing with each subsequent month.