Mentality Magazine
Mentality Magazine is a student-run literary magazine at the University
of Michigan focusing on mental health the stigma surrounding it. Each semester, the group releases a new issue full of prose, poetry, photography, and other media centering around that semester's theme.
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I began designing covers for Mentality in the fall of 2022 and have served as Design Editor since fall 2023. As Design Editor I create the layout as well as the cover for each issue. I also create social media and promotional graphics for the group.
Mentality Logo
Signature Color
Pre-Existing Design Elements
Print Designs
Volume 16: Growing Up
For our Spring 2024 volume, our team landed on the theme of growing up. As many in our club are now graduating seniors, the topic resonated with us, and we leaned into the ambivalence and thrill of impending departure from our undergrad years.
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To visualize this theme, I illustrated the growth of a seedling which eventually blooms into a radiant orange flower whose petals stretch across the sky. The theme's title became a graphic element, the text tapered along the growth path. The word "UP" is in the flower's center as the focal point of the page, a sort of symbolic and visual destination at the end of the word "GROWING."
Ilustration Explorations
Color Palette
For this color palette, I chose a combination of bright and deep greens, a deep purple and a deep red-orange, inspired by the shift into springtime and warmth
Spread Example: Table of Contents, Info Page
Spread Example: E-board Childhood Photos
Volume 15: What's the Rush?
Our Fall 2023 theme was "what's the rush?" and we centered pieces that engaged with the tensions between productivity culture individual wellbeing. Amidst the stress of midterms and later finals, we found some comfort in identifying shared experiences and creating work that spoke to the paradoxes of these competing forces.
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To symbolize this theme, I combined a collection of elements I associate with rushing and stress.: a clock, some gears, an open textbook, and a graduation cap. I connected these visual components through the additions of floating text and anthropomorphized features on the gears.
Illustration Explorations
Color Palette
For this color palette, I picked this pale blue, golden yellow, warm pink/coral, and deep purple. My goal was to create a playful aesthetic, approaching a stress-filled topic with humor.
Spread Example: Table of Contents, Info Page
Spread Example: E-board Childhood Photos
Volume 14: The Power of Vulnerability
For the spring of 2023 we chose the power of vulnerability, highlighting how being open and vulnerable can be liberating, facilitating growth and transformation. We felt inspired by this theme and its potential to address stigma and silence around mental health.
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I illustrated this idea by centering 2 figures, their hearts standing out against their dark silhouettes. They reach out to hold hands, suggesting a search for human connection. I put the sun behind them, its rays peeking through the outlines of mountains to illuminate the scene, representing how allowing yourself to be vulnerable can bring warmth and lightness to difficult situations.
Color Palette
This color palette, selected by the previous design editor, focuses on bright and energizing colors for this theme with a coral peach color, vibrant teal, yellow, and cool red.
Volume 13: Purpose
Our Fall 2022 theme was the idea of purpose, and our feelings about defining and seeking it. All of us were navigating choices like what to major in, how to best prepare ourselves for careers we were unsure of, and what it all meant to each of us. This topic felt like a good way to brooch these anxiety-provoking questions and the opportunities within them.
I chose to represent this through an illustration of flowering plants unfurling inside a pair of hands, expanding outward and taking shape. This early, nebulous growth was meant to mimic the way our life paths and senses of our own purpose and direction can form, evolving and constantly in flux. The word "PURPOSE" hovers over the central illustration with a question mark dangling from the letter E to highlight the lack of certainty that accompanies the search for purpose.
Color Palette
This theme's palette was chosen by the previous design editor, who wanted calming and uplifting colors.
Promotional Graphics
Festifall Flyer
For our Spring 2024 issue, our team landed on the theme of growing up. As many in our club are now graduating seniors, the topic resonated with us, and we leaned into the ambivalence and thrill of impending departure from our undergrad years.
​
To visualize this theme, I illustrated the progressive growth of a seedling that eventually blooms into a radiant orange flower whose petals stretch across the sky. I made the theme's title into a graphic element by tapering the text along the plant's growth trajectory. The word "UP" is placed inside the flower's center as the focal point of the page, a sort of symbolic and visual destination at the end of the word "GROWING."
Call for Submissions Posts
I made these posts in Canva to announce the submissions opening for our spring 2024 volume. The version on the left (1080 x 1080 px) is for a regular Instagram post, and the one on the right (1080 x 1920 px) is for a story.
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I highlighted the theme with a big orange paint splash and directing the viewer towards a google form that was to be linked at the bottom of the posts.
Color Palette
I used 2 colors (orange and lime green) from an early iteration of the color palette for print.
Vector Graphics Used from Canva
Flower graphic for the background pattern, text card for the main text, paint splatter for the theme and arrow for the link.
Fall 2024 Promo Flyer
This flyer was a general call for new members to try out Mentality, and we posted it around campus to get the word out. This was January 2024, after our normal recruitment push for Festifall, so we wanted to make something to boost our visibility as a group.
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I wanted the hierarchy for this composition to prioritize the Mentality logo, then the text that reads, "JOIN MENTALITY MAGAZINE." The next most important element was the interest form QR code and call to fill it out, and all other information was less prominent.
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I used the outline of a head as the main graphic element in this flyer, alluding to the mental health focus of the magazine, and added a brain shape to hold the interest form QR code and accompanying text. Smaller thought bubble shapes hold the club's summary and info about submitting for non-members. Finally, at the bottom, I included our email address, website, and Instagram.