Mini Ninth Letter

My second semester sophomore year, I participated in a typography class that had the opportunity to work with the editors of Ninth Letter. Ninth Letter is a literary arts journal edited and produced by the Creative Writing Department at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. My class got to read the stories chosen for the 2021 spring edition early and got to work making designs for each chapter opener. There was no guarantee that the designs we made would be used in the publication, however there was a chance.

This opportunity excited me. I jumped in full force and began the work of ideating, researching, and sketching. I was so enthralled by this project, I decided to take it a step further and take it on as an Honors Project for my James Scholar program. The class required that I show progress on and submit 2 chapter openers, however I decided I wanted to create at least 5, more if I had time. I had no experience using Illustrator; however, I was able to introduce myself to the program through YouTube videos and LinkedIn Learning Courses. Over the course of this class, I ended up producing 7 chapter openers while being mentored bi-weekly by the professor who taught the course. My design for “Beautiful Machine” ended up being used in the printed publication, and I was beyond proud of the work I accomplished and how much I was able to learn from this coursework.