Publication Design by timdont

Process Book

Publication Design Process Tim Do | Andrea Herstowski | Visc 202

Publication Design

Process Book

Project Brief

Project Overview

Publication / Editorial design is a fascinating field that combines our abilities for creative typography, smart layouts and clever compositions. All around the world people wake up early and stay up late creating compositions that millions get a hold of in the form of newspapers, magazines, books, ebooks, iPad magazines. The amount of content included in the publication of things like books and magazines demand strict guidelines and rules for the use of typography and layout within the volumes and periodicals produced. The success of these publications depends on clear communication and consist story telling, both of which demand rigorous applications of grid layouts and the establishment of visual hierarchies in order to keep readers entertained while they consume the content.

Overall feeling, I like this project. At first, it felt a bit overwhelming, going through hundreds of New York Times articles and finding ones with 1000 words and 6 images. With the amount of back catalog and behind the covers to watch, it was harder to consider a certain direction I wanted to go in. At some point, I googled “good articles” and it led me down more rabbit holes. I did think the 25 explorations helped solidify my ideas. At first, 25 seems like a lot but I think that sort of exploration was necessary for figuring out. However, I was confused many times with how vague some of the directions were and I remember scrambling with my peers about what people had and what was supposed to be due. I feel like the 25 explorations were vague on purpose but I think some clarity in the sort of area we’re exploring or doing some inclass could help with homework. I liked looking through the books, they gave me a lot of inspiration throughout the design process and I often looked back at what they did and reworked it to my situation. With the design, I think I was very indecisive with my decision-making. I remember crits where I’d just look at my opening spreads and felt stuck on what to do next. Maybe becoming more active in my design role should benefit me, but I also feel like I don’t know a lot to make those decisions. I’m at a loss on what to strive for and what to avoid but I think my end result is okay.

The principles about what makes a good layout or series of spreads are the same design principles when you design a brand story, website, motion/animation, etc. Publication today is not restricted to print. To practice these principles we will be using print.

After finishing the document, I don’t feel angry about my project. I feel relieved but also proud, especially when the print is in my hands. I also am unsure what to feel next. I’ve had a thing against enjoying the things I make. In my mind, if I like it too much, I’ll stay with it and compare the next thing to this one. As creatives, I’ve noticed a lot of self-doubt and uncertainty about schooling or professional work ( which is part of the human condition) but I think learning to celebrate my project can help me move on and create something better.

Publication Design

Research and Article Selection

Process Book

My Zombie, Myself By Chuck Klosterman

The popularity of zombies has risen more than ever and their applications to modern life is influential upon the human condition. Monsters are often allegories for human fear but the love for/ interest in zombies are a complex response to the repetitive and mundane nature of human society and our desire to escape. The zombies are us as we submit ourselves to the mortifying ordeals of corporate America, the Internet, and our own brief humanity. I picked it because I like Zombies. Also I think human psychology and ethics are interesting. I liked the picture from the “Night of the Living Dead”. The black and white give the image a more ominous feeling. Like zombies, we are zombies.

Publication Design

Key Images

Process Book

Publication Design

Process Book

Key Words

Descriptive Phrases

Thoughtful: provocative, interesting, introspective,reflective, earnest, interesting Philosophical: abstract, metaphysical, profound, composed, deep, rational Satirical: analytical, humanistic, sardonic, sarcastic, incisive, mocking Fun: amusing, entertaining, enjoyable, comical, campy, charming Uncommon: bizarre, egregious, strange, peculiar, abnormal, paranormal Nerdy: absurd, dorky, niche, weird, geeky, unconventional

cemetery-fog, 80s horror movie slasher, cubicle office job, dim and dark, conventional Maybe going in a direction that pays homage to popular zombie media like movies or comics playing to more 1968-1980s zombies rather than its contemporary counterparts. Like old comic books and movie posters that you’d see at the theater in October.

Publication Design

Process Book

Video Notes

Reading Notes

Tedtalk facial recognition-- typeface recognition Cursed words-- kids wrote fuck Looking for constraints from different disciplines and apply them to graphic design Collaboration and Forced constraints Typeface design- don’t need a client, self motivated, Find typographic form into commonday objects- design builds itself

Keep a Diary Use diary to make words Keep diary carve body Personal reminders in public spaces

Man makes letter with stuff Everything make words and type Object see make pretty letter

Designing for Simplicity Man makes art with food Simplicity is more work less pain

Marian Bantjes Collect dirt sand make pretty Form with object and elements Found material create intricate design

Behind the Covers Tree make brain go smooth

Typography Video Tracking- change distance of all letters ( change density) Widow- Single word at the bottom of text Orphan- single word at the top of text Serif Typeface- strokes at end of letters, traditional, make more professional or authoritative Sans Serif Typeface- Remove serifs, modern, reading on screens, cleaner and less visual noise Script/Cursive Typeface- emulate the flow of the pen, highly decorative, minimal (casual script) Slab Serif Typeface- Thicker serifs, most commonly used for headlines, most suited for titles Scottish man tells me terms Typography terms easy to learn

Gail Bichler New York Times Rebrand go Brrrr Make new with inspired old Work do good

Mac is not a typewriter Monospace: characters are the same space to each other. Ex: Monaco & Courier Proportional: characters take up space evenly according to one another Use real quotation marks typewriter quotation marks = unprofessional type. Alt+0146 Commas and periods are always inside; colon and semicolons, outside; question marks and exclamation points go in or out (depending on usage); if more than one paragraph is quoted, the double quote is placed at the beginning or each paragraph. Apostrophe usage for possessive (not its), Contractions, Omission of letters (replaces letter that are taken out) Hyphens (to hyphenate words and line breaks), En Dash (indicates duration or compound adjectives, EX: October – November or San Francisco–Chicago flight), Em Dash (Abrupt change in thought) Kerning is the process of removing small units of space between letters to create a more visually-consistent letter spacing. It is totally dependent on your eye Characters with two verticals need the most amount of space (keep it consistent) Vertical and curve needs less space Curve next to curve needs very little space The curve can overlap in space under a bar The closest kerning is done where both letters have a great deal of white space Never leave a page with Widows or Orphans Avoid more than two hyphenations in a row Avoid many hyphenations in any paragraph

Avoid stupid hyphenations No Hyphenation in headings Break lines sensibly Keep line space consistent Leading is typically 20% of type size Adjust leading with all caps Adjust the spacing between paragraphs (After function in paragraph tool) Justify text if the line is long or small enough to prevent awkward spacing Line length in picas should be twice the point size Serif is more readable and best for body type Sans Serif is more legible and best for headlines and signage Is sans serif is used as text, keep lines short and avoid manipulation of type styles

Publication Design

Process Book

Artist Research Gail Anderson

Chloe Scheffe

I really like the manipulation of type into the photograph and the spread format makes the image stronger. I think incorporating elements of daily life and adding details about my article could be interesting.

Scheffe’s probably an new inspiration of mine. Something about how she treats the type and her use of grid is very eye catching to me and the colors! I think they balance out nicely.

Tina Smith

Matt Wiley

Her type is amazing! I love her variety yet consistancy that balance letters together. I also think her spreads are really good and I am drawn to ones with lots of white spaces for your eyes to rest.

I was really drawn to his use of type manipulation and photo treatments. I think the scale he uses is also visually interesting as well as the grid.

Publication Design

Process Book

Claudia Rubin

David Carson

I was really drawn to the way type was used to as color and create a mood. I think the brown one frames the titlw well without taking away from it. Also the visuals are compelling with the images and type elements inteacting with each other.

The manipulation of image while interacting with type serves a very strong and visually interesting composition and the bottom manipulation really sets a tone and mood that works well.

Tibor Kalman

Alexey Brodovitch

The way photo and type interact has an certain style to it. I think with the type outlining the baby, it shows a more dynamic display of information while keeping the baby the focal point

I really like the old collage graphic elements and the use of angled grids for the type. It’s very Swiss design.

Neville Brody

I think the visuals and use of graphic elements interacting with type breaks up the page well and gives the reader enough look at while giving the eyes some other space.

Publication Design

25 Explorations

Process Book

Publication Design

Process Book

Publication Design

Process Book

Publication Design

Process Book

Publication Design

Opening Spreads

Process Book

Round 1

Publication Design

Process Book

Publication Design

Process Book

Publication Design

Opening Spreads

Process Book

Round 2

Publication Design

Process Book

Publication Design

Process Book

Publication Design

Type Specs

Process Book

Headline

My Zombie, Myself photo

Subhead

Byline

Why Modern Life Feels Rather Undead

By Chuck Klosterman

Intro Text

Body Text 8.5 /12

Callout

FONTS Utopia

“Don’t stop believing. Don’t stop deleting. Return your voice mails and nod your agreements. This is the zombies’ world, and we just live in it. But we can live better.”

ZOMBIES are a value stock. They are wordless and oozing and brain dead, but they’re an ever-expanding market with no glass ceiling. Zombies are a target-rich environment, literally and figuratively. The more you fill them with bullets, the more interesting they become. Roughly 5.3 million people watched the first episode of “The Walking Dead” on AMC, a stunning 83 percent more than the 2.9 million who watched the Season 4 premiere of “Mad Men.” This means there are at least 2.4 million cable-ready Americans who might prefer watching Christina Hendricks if she were an animated corpse. Statistically and aesthetically that dissonance seems perverse. But it probably shouldn’t. Mainstream interest in zombies has steadily risen over the past 40 years. Zombies are a commodity that has advanced slowly and without major evolution, much like the staggering creatures George Romero popularized in the 1968 film “Night of the Living Dead.” What makes that measured amplification curious is the inherent limitations of the zombie itself: You can’t add much depth to a creature who can’t talk, doesn’t think and whose only motive is the consumption of flesh. You can’t humanize a zombie, unless you make it less zombie-esque. There are slow zombies, and there are fast zombies— that’s pretty much the spectrum of zombie diversity. It’s not that zombies are changing to fit the world’s condition; it’s that the condition of the world seems more like a zombie offensive. Something about zombies is becoming more intriguing to us. And I think I know what that something is.

Zombies are just so easy to kill. When we think critically about monsters, we tend to classify them as personifications of what we fear. Frankenstein’s monster illustrated our trepidation about untethered science; Godzilla was spawned from the fear of the atomic age; werewolves feed into an instinctual panic over predation and man’s detachment from nature. Vampires and zombies share an imbedded anxiety about disease. It’s easy to project a symbolic relationship between zombies and rabies (or zombies and the pitfalls of consumerism), just as it’s easy to project a symbolic relationship between vampirism and AIDS (or vampirism and the loss of purity). From a creative standpoint these fear projections are narrative linchpins; they turn creatures into ideas, and that’s the point. But what if the audience infers an entirely different metaphor? What if contemporary people are less interested in seeing depictions of their unconscious fears and more attracted to allegories of how their day-to-day existence feels? That would explain why so many people watched that first episode of “The Walking Dead”: They knew they would be able to relate to it. A lot of modern life is exactly like slaughtering zombies. IF THERE’S ONE THING we all understand about zombie killing, it’s that the act is uncomplicated: you blast one in the brain from point-blank range (preferably with a shotgun). That’s Step 1. Step 2 is doing the same thing to the next zombie that takes its place. Step 3 is identical to Step 2, and Step 4 isn’t any different from Step 3. Repeat this process until (a) you perish, or (b) you run out of zombies. That’s really the only viable strategy.

Every zombie war is a war of attrition. It’s always a numbers game. And it’s more repetitive than complex. In other words, zombie killing is philosophically similar to reading and deleting 400 work e-mails on a Monday morning or filling out paperwork that only generates more paperwork, or following Twitter gossip out of obligation, or performing tedious tasks in which the only true risk is being consumed by the avalanche. The principal downside to any zombie attack is that the zombies will never stop coming; the principal downside to life is that you will be never be finished with whatever it is you do. The Internet reminds of us this every day. Here’s a passage from a youngish writer named Alice Gregory, taken from a recent essay on Gary Shteyngart’s dystopic novel “Super Sad True Love Story” in the literary journal n+1: “It’s hard not to think ‘death drive’ every time I go on the Internet,” she writes. “Opening Safari is an actively destructive decision. I am asking that consciousness be taken away from me.” Ms. Gregory’s self-directed fear is thematically similar to how the zombie brain is described by Max Brooks, author of the fictional oral history “World War Z” and its accompanying self-help manual, “The Zombie Survival Guide”: “Imagine a computer programmed to execute one function. This function cannot be paused, modified or erased. No new data can be stored. No new commands can be installed. This computer will perform that one function, over and over, until its power source eventually shuts down.” This is our collective fear projection: that we

Acumin Pro 25

My Zombie, Myself, New York Times Magazine

My Zombie, Myself

Headline

photo

Why Modern Life Feels Rather Undead

Subhead

Intro Text

By Chuck Klosterman

Byline

Body Text

Callout

“A lot of modern life is exactly like slaughtering zombies.”

FONTS Baskerville

zombie offensive. Something about zombies is becoming more intriguing to us. And I think I know what that something is. Zombies are just so easy to kill. When we think critically about monsters, we tend to classify them as personifications of what we fear. Frankenstein’s monster illustrated our trepidation about untethered science; Godzilla was spawned from the fear of the atomic age; werewolves feed into an instinctual panic over predation and man’s detachment from nature. Vampires and zombies share an imbedded anxiety about disease. It’s easy to project a symbolic relationship between zombies and rabies (or zombies and the pitfalls of consumerism), just as it’s easy to project a symbolic relationship between vampirism and AIDS (or vampirism and the loss of purity). From a creative standpoint these fear projections are narrative linchpins; they turn creatures into ideas, and that’s the point. But what if the audience infers an entirely different metaphor? What if contemporary people are less interested in seeing depictions of their unconscious fears and more attracted to allegories of how their day-to-day existence feels? That would explain why so many people watched that first episode of “The Walking Dead”: They knew they would be able to relate to it. A lot of modern life is exactly like slaughtering zombies. IF THERE’S ONE THING we all understand about zombie killing, it’s that the act is uncomplicated: you blast one in the brain from point-blank range (preferably with a shotgun). That’s Step 1. Step 2 is doing the same thing to the next zombie that takes its place. Step 3 is identical to Step 2, and Step 4 isn’t any different from Step 3. Repeat this process until (a) you perish, or (b) you run out of zombies. That’s really the only viable strategy. Every zombie war is a war of attrition. It’s always a numbers game. And it’s more repetitive than complex. In other words, zombie killing is philosophically similar to reading and deleting 400 work e-mails on a Monday morning or filling out paperwork that only generates more paperwork, or following Twitter gossip out of obligation, or performing tedious tasks in which

IBM Plex Sans 25

Name of the Article, New York Times Magazine

Headline

My Zombie, Myself photo

Subhead

Byline

Why Modern Life Feels Rather Undead

By Chuck Klosterman

Intro Text

Body Text 8.5 /12

Callout

“Don’t stop believing. Don’t stop deleting. Return your voice mails and nod your agreements. This is the zombies’ world, and we just live in it. But we can live better.”

FONTS Adobe Garamond Pro

When we think critically about monsters, we tend to classify them as personifications of what we fear. Frankenstein’s monster illustrated our trepidation about

with whatever it is you do. The Internet reminds of us this every day. Here’s a passage from a youngish writer named Alice Gregory, taken from a recent essay on Gary Shteyngart’s dystopic novel “Super Sad True Love Story” in the literary journal n+1: “It’s hard not to think ‘death drive’ every time I go on the Internet,” she writes. “Opening Safari is an actively destructive decision. I am asking that consciousness be taken away from me.” Ms. Gregory’s self-directed fear is thematically similar to how the zombie brain is described by Max Brooks, author of the fictional oral history “World War Z” and its accompanying self-help manual, “The Zombie Survival Guide”: “Imagine a computer programmed to execute one function. This function cannot be paused, modified or erased. No new data can be stored. No new commands can be installed. This computer will perform that one function, over and over, until its power source eventually shuts down.”

A lot of modern life is exactly like slaughtering zombies. IF THERE’S ONE THING we all understand about zombie killing, it’s that the act is uncomplicated: you blast one in the brain from point-blank range (preferably with a shotgun). That’s Step 1. Step 2 is doing the same thing to the next zombie that takes its place. Step 3 is identical to Step 2, and Step 4 isn’t any different from Step 3. Repeat this process until (a) you perish, or (b) you run out of zombies. That’s really the only viable strategy. Every zombie war is a war of attrition. It’s always a numbers game. And it’s more repetitive than complex. In other words, zombie killing is philosophically similar to reading and deleting 400 work e-mails on a Monday morning or filling out paperwork that only generates more paperwork, or following Twitter gossip out of obligation, or performing tedious tasks in which the only true risk is being consumed by the avalanche. The principal downside to any zombie attack is that the zombies will never stop coming; the principal downside to life is that you will be never be finished

This is our collective fear projection: that we will be consumed. Zombies are like the Internet and the media and every conversation we don’t want to have. All of it comes at us endlessly (and thoughtlessly), and — if we surrender — we will be overtaken and absorbed. Yet this war is manageable, if not necessarily winnable. As long we keep deleting whatever’s directly in front of us, we survive. We live to eliminate the zombies of tomorrow. We are able to remain human, at least for the time being. Our enemy is relentless and colossal, but also uncreative and stupid. Battling zombies is like battling anything ... or everything. BECAUSE OF THE ‘TWILIGHT’ series it’s

Zeitung Pro 25

My Zombie, Myself, New York Times Magazine

Headline

Subhead

Byline

Callout

My Zombie, Myself

Why Modern Life Feels Rather Undead By Chuck Klosterman

“A lot of modern life is exactly like slaughtering zombies.”

FONTS Aktiv Grotesk Adobe Caslon Pro

photo

Intro Text

Body Text

Headline

My Zombie, Myself photo

Subhead

Byline

Why Modern Life Feels Rather Undead

By Chuck Klosterman

Intro Text

Body Text 8.5 /12

Callout

“Don’t stop believing. Don’t stop deleting. Return your voice mails and nod your agreements. This is the zombies’ world, and we just live in it. But we can live better.”

FONTS Le Monde Livre Std

Zombies are just so easy to kill.

IF THERE’S ONE THING we all understand about zombie killing, it’s that the act is uncomplicated: you blast one in the brain from point-blank range (preferably with a shotgun). That’s Step 1. Step 2 is doing the same thing to the next zombie that takes its place. Step 3 is identical to Step 2, and Step 4 isn’t any different from Step 3. Repeat this process until (a) you perish, or (b) you run out of

zombies. That’s really the only viable strategy. Every zombie war is a war of attrition. It’s always a numbers game. And it’s more repetitive than complex. In other words, zombie killing is philosophically similar to reading and deleting 400 work e-mails on a Monday morning or filling out paperwork that only generates more paperwork, or following Twitter gossip out of obligation, or performing tedious tasks in which the only true risk is being consumed by the avalanche. The principal downside to any zombie attack is that the zombies will never stop coming; the principal downside to life is that you will be never be finished with whatever it is you do. The Internet reminds of us this every day. Here’s a passage from a youngish writer named Alice Gregory, taken from a recent essay on Gary Shteyngart’s dystopic novel “Super Sad True Love Story” in the literary journal n+1: “It’s hard not to think ‘death drive’ every time I go on the Internet,” she writes. “Opening Safari is an actively destructive decision. I am asking that consciousness be taken away from me.” Ms. Gregory’s self-directed fear is thematically similar to how the zombie brain is described by Max Brooks, author of the fictional oral history “World War Z” and its accompanying self-help manual, “The Zombie Survival Guide”: “Imagine a computer programmed to execute one function. This function cannot be paused, modified or erased. No new data can be stored. No new commands can be installed. This computer will perform that one function, over and over, until its power source eventually shuts down.” This is our collective fear projection: that we will be consumed. Zombies are like the Internet and the media and every conversation we don’t want to have. All of it comes at us endlessly (and thoughtlessly), and — if we surrender — we will be overtaken and absorbed. Yet this war is manageable, if not necessarily winnable. As long

My Zombie, Myself, New York Times Magazine

When we think critically about monsters, we tend to classify them as personifications of what we fear. Frankenstein’s monster illustrated our trepidation about untethered science; Godzilla was spawned from the fear of the atomic age; werewolves feed into an instinctual panic over predation and man’s detachment from nature. Vampires and zombies share an imbedded anxiety about disease. It’s easy to project a symbolic relationship between zombies and rabies (or zombies and the pitfalls of consumerism), just as it’s easy to project a symbolic relationship between vampirism and AIDS (or vampirism and the loss of purity). From a creative standpoint these fear projections are narrative linchpins; they turn creatures into ideas, and that’s the point.

But what if the audience infers an entirely different metaphor? What if contemporary people are less interested in seeing depictions of their unconscious fears and more attracted to allegories of how their day-today existence feels? That would explain why so many people watched that first episode of “The Walking Dead”: They knew they would be able to relate to it. A lot of modern life is exactly like slaughtering zombies.

Meta Pro

Headline

My Zombie, Myself photo

Subhead

Byline

Why Modern Life Feels Rather Undead

Intro Text

By Chuck Klosterman Body Text

Callout

“A lot of modern life is exactly like slaughtering zombies.”

FONTS

that zombies are changing to fit the world’s condition; it’s that the condition of the world seems more like a zombie offensive. Something about zombies is becoming more intriguing to us. And I think I know what that something is. Zombies are just so easy to kill. When we think critically about monsters, we tend to classify them as personifications of what we fear. Frankenstein’s monster illustrated our trepidation about untethered science; Godzilla was spawned from the fear of the atomic age; werewolves feed into an instinctual panic over predation and man’s detachment from nature. Vampires and zombies share an imbedded anxiety about disease. It’s easy to project a symbolic relationship between zombies and rabies (or zombies and the pitfalls of consumerism), just as it’s easy to project a symbolic relationship between vampirism and AIDS (or vampirism and the loss of purity). From a creative standpoint these fear projections are narrative linchpins; they turn creatures into ideas, and that’s the point.

Roughly 5.3 million people watched the first episode of “The Walking Dead” on AMC, a stunning 83 percent more than the 2.9 million who watched the Season 4 premiere of “Mad Men.” This means there are at least 2.4 million cable-ready Americans who might prefer watching Christina Hendricks if she were an animated corpse.

But what if the audience infers an entirely different metaphor? What if contemporary people are less interested in seeing depictions of their unconscious fears and more attracted to allegories of how their day-to-day existence feels? That would explain why so many people watched that first episode of “The Walking Dead”: They knew they would be able to relate to it.

Statistically and aesthetically that dissonance seems perverse. But it probably shouldn’t. Mainstream interest in zombies has steadily risen over the past 40 years. Zombies are a commodity that has advanced slowly and without major evolution, much like the staggering creatures George Romero popularized in the 1968 film “Night of the Living Dead.” What makes that measured amplification curious is the inherent limitations of the zombie itself: You can’t add much depth to a creature who can’t talk, doesn’t think and whose only motive is the consumption of flesh. You can’t humanize a zombie, unless you make it less zombie-esque. There are slow zombies, and there are fast zombies— that’s pretty much the spectrum of zombie diversity. It’s not

Le Monde Sans Std Museo 25

Name of the Article, New York Times Magazine

Headline

My Zombie, Myself photo

Subhead

Byline

Why Modern Life Feels Rather Undead

By Chuck Klosterman

Intro Text

Body Text 8.5 /12

Callout

“Don’t stop believing. Don’t stop deleting. Return your voice mails and nod your agreements. This is the zombies’ world, and we just live in it. But we can live better.”

FONTS Adobe Jenson Pro Vista Slab

untethered science; Godzilla was spawned from the fear of the atomic age; werewolves feed into an instinctual panic over predation and man’s detachment from nature. Vampires and zombies share an imbedded anxiety about disease. It’s easy to project a symbolic relationship between zombies and rabies (or zombies and the pitfalls of consumerism), just as it’s easy to project a symbolic relationship between vampirism and AIDS (or vampirism and the loss of purity). From a creative standpoint these fear projections are narrative linchpins; they turn creatures into ideas, and that’s the point. But what if the audience infers an entirely different metaphor? What if contemporary people are less interested in seeing depictions of their unconscious fears and more attracted to allegories of how their day-to-day existence feels? That would explain why so many people watched that first episode of “The Walking Dead”: They knew they would be able to relate to it. A lot of modern life is exactly like slaughtering zombies. IF THERE’S ONE THING we all understand about zombie killing, it’s that the act is uncomplicated: you blast one in the brain from point-blank range (preferably with a shotgun). That’s Step 1. Step 2 is doing the same thing to the next zombie that takes its place. Step 3 is identical to Step 2, and Step 4 isn’t any different from Step 3. Repeat this process until (a) you perish, or (b) you run out of zombies. That’s really the only viable strategy. Every zombie war is a war of attrition. It’s always a numbers game. And it’s more repetitive than complex. In other words, zombie killing is philosophically similar to reading and deleting 400 work e-mails on a Monday morning or filling out paperwork that only generates more paperwork, or following Twitter gossip out of obligation, or performing tedious tasks in which the only true risk is being consumed by the avalanche. The

principal downside to any zombie attack is that the zombies will never stop coming; the principal downside to life is that you will be never be finished with whatever it is you do. The Internet reminds of us this every day. Here’s a passage from a youngish writer named Alice Gregory, taken from a recent essay on Gary Shteyngart’s dystopic novel “Super Sad True Love Story” in the literary journal n+1: “It’s hard not to think ‘death drive’ every time I go on the Internet,” she writes. “Opening Safari is an actively destructive decision. I am asking that consciousness be taken away from me.” Ms. Gregory’s self-directed fear is thematically similar to how the zombie brain is described by Max Brooks, author of the fictional oral history “World War Z” and its accompanying self-help manual, “The Zombie Survival Guide”: “Imagine a computer programmed to execute one function. This function cannot be paused, modified or erased. No new data can be stored. No new commands can be installed. This computer will perform that one function, over and over, until its power source eventually shuts down.” This is our collective fear projection: that we will be consumed. Zombies are like the Internet and the media and every conversation we don’t want to have. All of it comes at us endlessly (and thoughtlessly), and — if we surrender — we will be overtaken and absorbed. Yet this war is manageable, if not necessarily winnable. As long we keep deleting whatever’s directly in front of us, we survive. We live to eliminate the zombies of tomorrow. We are able to remain human, at least for the time being. Our enemy is relentless and colossal, but also uncreative and stupid.

Headline

My Zombie, Myself photo

Subhead

Byline

Why Modern Life Feels Rather Undead

Intro Text

By Chuck Klosterman Body Text

Callout

“A lot of modern life is exactly like slaughtering zombies.”

FONTS

When we think critically about monsters, we tend to classify them as personifications of what we fear. Frankenstein’s monster

illustrated our trepidation about untethered science; Godzilla was spawned from the fear of the atomic age; werewolves feed into an instinctual panic over predation and man’s detachment from nature. Vampires and zombies share an imbedded anxiety about disease. It’s easy to project a symbolic relationship between zombies and rabies (or zombies and the pitfalls of consumerism), just as it’s easy to project a symbolic relationship between vampirism and AIDS (or vampirism and the loss of purity). From a creative standpoint these fear projections are narrative linchpins; they turn creatures into ideas, and that’s the point. But what if the audience infers an entirely different metaphor? What if contemporary people are less interested in seeing depictions of their unconscious fears and more attracted to allegories of how their day-to-day existence feels? That would explain why so many people watched that first episode of “The Walking Dead”: They knew they would be able to relate to it. A lot of modern life is exactly like slaughtering zombies. IF THERE’S ONE THING we all understand about zombie killing, it’s that the act is uncomplicated: you blast one in the brain from point-blank range (preferably with a shotgun). That’s Step 1. Step 2 is doing the same thing to the next zombie that takes its place. Step 3 is identical to Step 2, and Step 4 isn’t any different from Step 3. Repeat this process until (a) you perish, or (b) you run out of zombies. That’s really the only viable strategy. Every zombie war is a war of attrition. It’s always a numbers game. And it’s more repetitive than complex. In other words, zombie killing is philosophically similar to reading and deleting 400 work e-mails on a Monday morning or filling out paperwork that only generates more paperwork, or following Twitter gossip out of obligation, or performing tedious tasks in which the only true risk is being consumed by the avalanche. The principal downside to any zombie attack is that the zombies will never stop coming; the principal downside to life is that you will be never be finished with whatever it is you do. The Internet reminds of us this every day.

Sabon Lt Pro 25

Name of the Article, New York Times Magazine

Publication Design

Toolkit

Process Book

Round 1

Publication Design

Process Book

My Zombie, Myself Why Modern Life Feels Rather Undead

Zombies are a target-rich environment, literally and figuratively. The more you fill them with bullets, the more interesting they become. Roughly 5.3 million people watched the first episode of “The Walking Dead” on AMC, a stunning 83 percent more than the 2.9 million who watched the Season 4 premiere of “Mad Men.” This means there are at least 2.4 million cable-ready Americans who might prefer watching Christina Hendricks if she were an animated corpse. Statistically and aesthetically that dissonance seems perverse. But it probably shouldn’t. Mainstream interest in zombies has steadily risen over the past 40 years. Zombies are a commodity that has advanced slowly and without major evolution, much like the staggering creatures George Romero popularized in the 1968 film “Night of the Living Dead.” What makes that measured amplification curious is the inherent limitations of the zombie itself: You can’t add much depth to a creature who can’t talk, doesn’t think and whose only motive is the consumption of flesh. You can’t humanize a zombie, unless you make it less zombie-esque. There are slow zombies, and there are fast zombies— that’s pretty much the spectrum of zombie diversity. It’s not that zombies are changing to fit the world’s condition; it’s that the condition of the world seems more like a zombie offensive. Something about zombies is becoming more intriguing to us. And I think I know what

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MY ZOMBIE, MYSELF: WHY MODERN LIFE FEELS RATHER UNDEAD

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Every zombie war is a war of

attrition. It’s always a numbers game. And it’s more repetitive than complex. In other words,

zombie killing is philosophically similar to reading and deleting

400 work e-mails on a Monday morning...

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No, he does not come in peace. A zombie on “The Walking Dead. AMC

THE

END

Chuck Klosterman

NIGH

My Zombie, Myself | New York Times | 79

A scene from George Romero’s 1968 “Night of the Living Dead.”Credit...Everett Collection

You can’t humanize a zombie, unless you make it less zombie-esque. There are slow zombies, and there are fast zombies— that’s pretty much the spectrum of zombie diversity. It’s not that zombies are changing to fit the world’s condition; it’s that the condition of the world seems more like a zombie offensive. Something about zombies is becoming more intriguing to us. And I think I know what that something is.

consumerism), just as it’s easy to project a symbolic relationship between vampirism and AIDS (or vampirism and the loss of purity). From a creative standpoint these fear projections are narrative linchpins; they turn creatures into ideas, and that’s the point. But what if the audience infers an entirely different metaphor? What if contemporary people are less interested in seeing depictions of their unconscious fears and more attracted to allegories of how their day-to-day existence feels? That would explain why so many people watched that first episode of “The Walking Dead”: They knew they would be able to relate to it.

lanche. The principal downside to any zombie attack is that the zombies will never stop coming; the principal downside to life is that you will be never be finished with whatever it is you do. The Internet reminds of us this every day. Here’s a passage from a youngish writer named Alice Gregory, taken from a recent essay on Gary Shteyngart’s dystopic novel “Super Sad True Love Story” in the literary journal n+1: “It’s hard not to think ‘death drive’ every time I go on the Internet,” she writes. “Opening Safari is an actively destructive decision. I am asking that consciousness be taken away from me.” Ms. Gregory’s self-directed fear is thematically similar to how the zombie brain is described by Max Brooks, author of the fictional oral history “World War Z” and its accompanying self-help manual, “The Zombie Survival Guide”: “Imagine a computer programmed to execute one function. This function cannot be paused, modified or erased. No new data can be stored. No new commands can be installed. This computer will perform that one function, over and over, until its power source eventually shuts down.”

“Shaun of the Dead,” from 2004.Rogue Pictures/Courtesy Everett Collection

My Zombie, Myself | New York Times | 81

Battling zombies is like battling anything ... or everything. BECAUSE OF THE ‘TWILIGHT’ series it’s easy to manufacture an argument in which zombies are merely replacing vampires as the monster of the moment, a designation that is supposed to matter for metaphorical,

nonmonstrous reasons. But that kind of thinking is deceptive. The recent five-year spike in vampire interest is only about the multiplatform success of “Twilight,” a brand that isn’t about vampirism anyway. It’s mostly about nostalgia for teenage chastity, the attractiveness of its film cast and the fact that contemporary fiction consumers tend to prefer long serialized novels that can be read rapidly. But this has still created a domino effect. The 2008 Swedish vampire film “Let the Right One In” was fantastic, but it probably wouldn’t have been remade in the United States if “Twilight” had never existed. “The Gates” was an overt attempt by ABC to tap into the housebound, preteen “Twilight” audience; HBO’s “True Blood” is a camp reaction to Robert Pattinson’s flat earnestness.

My Zombie, Myself | New York Times | 83

The difference with zombies, of course, is that it’s possible to like a specific vampire temporarily, which isn’t really an option with the undead. Characters like Mr. Pattinson’s Edward Cullen in “Twilight” and Anne Rice’s Lestat de Lioncourt, and even boring old Count Dracula can be multidimensional and erotic; it’s possible to learn who they are and who they once were. Vampire love can be singular. Zombie love, however, is always communal. If you dig zombies, you dig the entire zombie concept. It’s never personal. You’re interested in what zombies signify, you like the way they move, and you understand what’s required to stop them. And this is a reassuring attraction, because those aspects don’t really shift. They’ve become shared archetypal knowledge.

A few days before Halloween I was in u pstate New York with three other people, and we somehow ended up at the Barn of Terror, outside a town call Lake Katrine. Entering the barn was mildly disturbing, although probably not as scary as going into an actual abandoned barn that didn’t charge $20 and doesn’t own its own domain name. Regardless, the best part was when we exited the terror barn and were promptly herded onto a school bus, which took us to a cornfield about a quarter of a mile away. The field was filled with amateur actors, some playing military personnel and others what they called the infected.

We were told to run through the moonlit corn maze if we wanted to live; as we ran, armed soldiers yelled contradictory instructions while hissing zombies emerged from the corny darkness. It was designed to be fun, and it was. But just before we immersed ourselves in the corn, one of my companions sardonically critiqued the reality of our predicament. “I know this is supposed to be scary,” he said. “But I’m pretty confident about my ability to deal with a zombie apocalypse. I feel strangely informed about what to do in this kind of scenario.”

If you knock a zombie down, direct a second bullet into its brain stem. But above all, do not assume that the war is over, because it never is. The zombies you kill today will merely be replaced by the zombies of tomorrow. But you can do this, my friend. It’s disenchanting, but it’s not difficult. Keep your finger on the trigger. Continue the termination. Don’t stop believing. Don’t stop deleting. Return your voice mails and nod your agreements. This is the zombies’ world, and we just live in it. But we can live better.

I could not disagree. At this point who isn’t? We all know how this goes: If you awake from a coma, and you don’t immediately see a member of the hospital staff, assume a zombie takeover has transpired during your incapacitation. Don’t travel at night and keep your drapes closed. Don’t let zombies spit on you.

A scene from AMC’s show “The Walking Dead,” whose first season concludes on Sunday.AMC

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Tim Do | VISC 202 |

Fall 2021

MY ZOMBIE, MYSELF: how modern life feels rather undead Chuck Klosterman

THE

END

No, he does not come in peace. A zombie on “The Walking Dead. AMC

Chuck Klosterman

NIGH

My Zombie, Myself | New York Times Magazine | 91

A scene from George Romero’s 1968 “Night of the Living Dead.” Everett Collection

Vampires and zombies share an imbedded anxiety about disease. It’s easy to project a symbolic relationship between zombies and rabies (or zombies and the pitfalls of consumerism), just as it’s easy to project a symbolic relationship between vampirism and AIDS (or vampirism and the loss of purity). From a creative standpoint these fear projections are narrative linchpins; they turn creatures into ideas, and that’s the point. But what if the audience infers an entirely different metaphor? What if contemporary people are less interested in seeing depictions of their unconscious fears and more attracted to allegories of how their day-to-day existence feels? That would explain why so many people watched that first episode of “The Walking Dead”: They knew they would be able to relate to it.

avlanche. The principal downside to any zombie attack is that the zombies will never stop coming; the principal downside to life is that you will be never be finished with whatever it is you do. The Internet reminds of us this every day. Here’s a passage from a youngish writer named Alice Gregory, taken from a recent essay on Gary Shteyngart’s dystopic novel “Super Sad True Love Story” in the literary journal n+1: “It’s hard not to think ‘death drive’ every time I go on the Internet,” she writes. “Opening Safari is an actively destructive decision. I am asking that consciousness be taken away from me.” Ms. Gregory’s self-directed fear is thematically similar to how the zombie brain is described by Max Brooks, author of the fictional oral history “World War Z” and its accompanying self-help manual, “The Zombie Survival Guide”: “Imagine a computer programmed to execute one function. This function cannot be paused, modified or erased. No new data can be stored. No new commands can be installed. This computer will perform that one function, over and over, until its power source eventually shuts down.”

“Shaun of the Dead,” from 2004. Rogue Pictures/Courtesy Everett Collection

My Zombie, Myself | New York Times Magazine | 93

is supposed to matter for metaphorical, nonmonstrous reasons. But that kind of thinking is deceptive. The recent five-year spike in vampire interest is only about the multiplatform success of “Twilight,” a brand that isn’t about vampirism anyway. It’s mostly about nostalgia for teenage chastity, the attractiveness of its film cast and the fact that contemporary fiction consumers tend to prefer long serialized novels that can be read rapidly. But this has still created a domino effect. The 2008 Swedish vampire film “Let the Right One In” was fantastic, but it probably wouldn’t have been remade in the United States if “Twilight” had never existed. “The Gates” was an overt attempt by ABC to tap into the housebound, preteen “Twilight” audience; HBO’s “True Blood” is a camp reaction to Robert Pattinson’s flat earnestness.

My Zombie, Myself | New York Times Magazine | 95

Don’t travel at night and keep your drapes closed. Don’t let zombies spit on you. If you knock a zombie down, direct a second bullet into its brain stem. But above all, do not assume that the war is over, because it never is. The zombies you kill today will merely be replaced by the zombies of tomorrow. But you can do this, my friend. It’s disenchanting, but it’s not difficult. Keep your finger on the trigger. Continue the termination. Don’t stop believing. Don’t stop deleting. Return your voice mails and nod your agreements. This is the zombies’ world, and we just live in it. But we can live better.

A scene from AMC’s show “The Walking Dead,” whose first season concludes on Sunday. AMC