CHARACTER of Parallel Gardens: Abby
Overview
This is a conceptual zine that examines digital identity and adolescence through a fictional online persona. It uses social media-inspired layouts to help viewers visualize anxiety, isolation, and self-performance. The piece is a companion piece to an in-progress project, named Parallel Gardens, to expand the narrative through character-driven design. I challenged myself to create this to allow the viewer to slow down with the character themself, which allows them to connect with and relate to the characters in all. It was very challenging to create the zine in a way that was realistic to the UI and overall feeling of social media while still giving vital information, such as the character sheet, of the character Abby.
Design in Context
- Combines social media aesthetics, glitched or layered typography, and narrative design to simulate and immersive online persona.
- The zine uses repetition, distortion, and layered text to also visually represent anxiety, isolation, and internal conflict while expanding the visual narrative of the character.
- Abby's character is integrated into a social media profile, UI-inspired layouts, and symbolic motifs to blur the boundaries between reality and digital spaces, which pushes the theme of the isolation that leads to exploration of self through digital worlds.
- The dual characters, Abby and Bella, helps explore emotional dissociation and the curation of self in online spaces, which emphasizes how digital spaces can shape connection, self-expression, and emotional growth.