Ninth Letter

Ninth Letter is a literary magazine that publishes poetry, fiction, and nonfiction. It is created by members of the School of Art + Design and the Creative Writing Program at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign. A typography course I took in Spring 2021, offered my peers and I the opportunity to design, typeset, and collaborate in the creation of the 18 volume of the magazine. Through this process I designed/illustrated chapter openers, front matter, and back matter. The class worked closely with the editors, this provided us with real experience and gave me a greater understanding of typography in publishing.

Cover Theme

This was the first edition of Ninth Letter being back on campus after the beginning of COVID-19. I wanted my theme to subtly remind the viewer of this. I chose this elevated blueprint design as a metaphor for rebuilding. This doubles as a metaphor for Ninth Letter and the creation of stories and their compilation into a literary journal. This project allowed me to challenge my Adobe Illustrator abilities.

Front cover

Back cover

Title page

Chapter Openers

Chapter openers were the first part of this project. After reading the stories and understanding the themes, and imagery, I began my illustrations. All illustrations were completed in Procreate on iPad. The final product was typeset and formatted in InDesign.