open up

open up is a book created around the theme of vulnerability-or in this case, the lack thereof. Following along with this theme of not allowing oneself to be vulnerable, I wanted to design something in the style of a diary-a place where emotions are usually on written in great detail-and flip it to where no emotions would be clear. The purpose of this book is to showcase what it is like to keep things bottled up, using personal experiences, personal writings, as well as distorted imagery to give off the feeling of being trapped and stuck in an endless loop of anxiety.

The idea for this project was conceived in my Advanced Typography class. The parameters we were given were that we could make a final project in any type of media we so chose, so long as it had to do with a theme we had previously worked with. In my case, vulnerability was what I had been creating my projects around. For me, it’s a struggle to be vulnerable. I never open up, and I feel at constant war with myself over whether or not keeping things bottled up keeps me safe or leaves me trapped. In order to produce this feeling through a project, I created a book that acted as a diary, but with content that looks as if it has been made illegible after it was written. Some of the words and images stay clear though; a visual balance of wanting to speak out and be heard but not having the courage to do so.