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BUNNYTOPIA
A zine about death and bunnies.
TIMELINE8 Weeks / Fall 2024
ROLEDesigner
TEAMSolo Project
SKILLS
Layout
Publication
Creative Writing
Jump to Final
OVERVIEW
bunnytopia is a zine about a quaint village in a clearing of a forest within the space that transitions a soul between life and death. You could choose to move on to the afterlife but bunnytopia offers the chance to return to the world you were in before, but can you ever move backwards?
The subject explores my experiences with religion, death, and how they interact with each other.
DEVELOPMENT
CONCEPT
bunnytopia is a gentle, liminal village between life and death, where souls are drawn in by the promise of rest and a chance to return to their former lives. Guided by the Order of the Hare, residents follow rabbit-inspired rituals, routines, and dream practices that symbolize hope but quietly maintain their entrapment. Through worldbuilding and symbolism, the project explores themes of faith, vulnerability, organized spirituality, and the tension between comfort and control, using the softness of the village to reveal how belief systems can nurture, guide, and also subtly confine.
MOODBOARDS
Starting off, I knew I wanted construct a world that felt dreamy, sleepy and surreal. While sourcing visual inspiration, I became enamored with imagery like spirals, gate design and rabbits.
Some media inspirations I looked to while developing the story and visual identity of bunnytopia were Alice in Wonderland and Over the Garden Wall.
With a visual direction in mind, I created a thumbnail flat-lay of the contents of the booklet. I decided to approach it like a welcome guide that a new arrival would be given writing it to be as such. I also started sketching scenes of what bunnytopia may look like and and how that would translate in book form.
LOGO
For the logo, I played with the imagery of gate design and burrows to represent the importance of rabbits within the community while symbolizing being trapped or manipulated.
TYPE AND COLOR
The type and color palette of bunnytopia relies of what is available in the environment of the imagined world. The colors are derived from the fauna, it’s earthiness representing the community’s reliance on the land while it’s saturation is dream-like. The typography, Mrs Eaves and Kennerly, are friendly and having a storybook-feel, a subtle deception.
REFINEMENT
Upon defining the “branding” elements, it gave me a good feel for the visual direction of the zine. So I continued drawing scenes from bunnytopia’s environment as well as what its inhabitants would make.
CONSTRUCTION
For the physical copy, I used a newsprint for the inner pages as it had a transparency that added to the dream-like quality of the entire zine. I used the Japanese stab-binding method to construct it together, which added greatly to the handmade feel, like a labour of love.
KEY SPREADS
Take a peek at some of my favorite spreads of the zine! If you’re interested in a copy, feel free to contact me.