Lost

For this project, I was tasked with creating a book based on a personal memory and a set of self-imposed rules. I chose to write about the time my brother and I got lost in Japan while trying to find Mt. Fuji. The composition, color palette, and cover design were inspired by my favorite anime/manga, Nana. I had purchased a copy of Nana in Japan and read it on the train ride to Mt. Fuji—before we got lost, of course. To reflect the traditional Japanese reading format, my book reads from right to left. I designed the grid structure based on Japanese manga layouts, with all inserts carefully aligned to fit within it.

The inserts in my book are repetitive, highlighting key moments from my time in Japan. The train inserts represent the overcrowded trains during rush hour and how punctuality is deeply valued in Japanese culture. The hand gesture inserts symbolize how people politely declined our requests for directions, often because they were in a rush or busy. The salaryman inserts reflect the many men we saw passed out on trains or in stations, exhausted from long work hours or using alcohol as a way to cope with the intense demands of their jobs. In keeping with my theme of reducing waste, I reused newsprint paper from a previous project to create the pages of this book.