Vision & Design

Embarking on this Zine project leads, once again, to an intersection of my vision loss, at this point with design. In conversations with the designer working on the project with me, the question of art direction obviously arose, and there were samples of other work that we looked at. The drafts I had rendered, ineffectually at best, had a very clean, sparse look to them, contrary to most of the samples. 

I buy a lot of zines, and the current trend in RPG design seems to be in an opposite direction, tending towards the dark, grim, and forboding, or towards highly designed and colorful interfaces. Because of my vision loss, the current aesthetic hotness ramps up inaccessibility, though I can definitely see the appeal!

So what to do? Do I follow the wave, even if it means not being able to fully appreciate, let alone fully discern, the graphic design of my own product? Do I push, or insist, on a design that is accessible to me, but that others find uninteresting or unappealing? How does accessibility, visual accessibility, fit with the world of Knock, Mork Borg, and other cutting-edge publications? What are the interesting, design forward, user-friendly, accessible models that I/we can lean on, or draw from, for this project?

The first example, and I'm sure there will be others after I post this, is Luke Gearing's Volume Two Monsters &. It is riffing off of traveler, but also hazy in the background, and this choice resonates throughout the work. It is direct, easy to read, and simple to operate.