Borderlands is an exploration and reimagining of Gloria Anzaldúa's writing on latina/chicana feminism from 1987 for my Typography 1 course. The chapter I chose to focus on was "Towards a New Conciousness / La concienda de la mestiza" which we read in my Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies course the same semester.

As a queer latinx person, selecting this for my final project felt like a great way to engage with a part of my identity that I felt at the time was often overlooked or left behind. Below you will see some of the test spreads, explorations of expressive type, and selected final spreads. The full digital edition of the book can be found linked on my Issuu.

As the project developed I went from a simple two-column layout with one accent color and a couple interesting fonts to a full-blown grid system for the layout, type hierarchy, and color scheme. Working between physical and digital really helped me nail this process as I discovered what I could bring back and forth between the two to really have fun with the type and imagery.

This is probably one of my favorite projects from college. One key component of this zine that I love is the marginalia. The small detailing in the project really helped level it up from good to great in my opinion. Additionally, the middle spread of the zine is a huge moment, creating a border wall out of the typographic elements. What really brought the whole project together, however, was the paper choice. In choosing a warm-toned and textured paper the type and imagery in the printed copy of the zine became far more expressive and textural than the digital copy. This made the experience not only visual, but tactile as well, which I felt really enhanced the words on the page.