Book Design | Typesetting Design | Print design
Nosotras
Nosotras: Latinas in Idaho
This bilingual book features stories, interviews, and photographs that celebrate the experiences of Latina women living in Idaho written by them. The project was headed by editors Maria Gonzalez Cardenas and Emily Wakild, the forward was by Alicia Garza and completed at Boise State University in my senior class. Everything from the layout, typography selection, and artwork was designed by me.
I was very apprehensive at the start of this project about trying to visually represent a community that I am not expressly a part of. So I approached every design decision with caution, doing my best to bring this book design to life in a way that was respectful to the community that created it! I wanted the book to be visually engaging while still being easy to read, and referencing the spirit of the stories within the book.
While reading through some of these women’s stories a phrase stuck out to me, “the fruits of their labor.” This got me thinking, I am not part of the Latina community, but I am a woman. Oftentimes, fruits are used in reference to women and fertility and many fruits, like tomatoes have their origins in Central and South America. Since there are three parts or generations of stories in this book, I represented that by three fruits. I wanted the design of the fruits to be very organic and loose, having an air of femininity to them. My aim here was to represent women without direct, literal representation.
Cover Design
Inside Page Design
As for the inside of the book, I wanted any Spanish text to be placed first in honor and representation of the roots of many of these women. The main heading text throughout is LosLana Niu Pro designed by Bruno Jara and Luciano Vergara from LatinoType. Not only is it an amazing Adobe font in itself, but I wanted to use a font that was designed by and for the Latin community. The body copy is typeset in Mulish, I wanted to use a font that had correct latin characters for both Spanish and English words. Additionally, I wanted to typeset a whole book in a sans serif font as a challenge for myself and because I had the freedom to choose.
Getting to work on this project was so incredibly inspiring, challenging, and rewarding. I hope I get the chance to design and typeset more books in the future to help tell more and more stories!