The Lit Review Project
A series of visual literature reviews merging research, design, and reflection.
All zines are currently available for download!
The Lit Review Project is a series of visual literature reviews that merge research, design, and reflection. What began as a way to reframe my master's thesis reading into something more personal and tactile became a creative methodology of its own. Each zine translates a single book or theme from my literature review list into illustrated spreads, hand-drawn diagrams, and fieldwork-inspired layouts. All zines are designed to be printed and folded at home. Download links are below each one. Feel free to also browse the full reading list on Goodreads ↗.
how to fold
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New to zine folding? Click to see step-by-step visual guides for each format.
8-panel single-sheet zine
One sheet of letter paper, folded and cut into an 8-page booklet. Used for: Citizen Scientist, Design Justice, and most zines in this series.
multi-sheet pamphlet
This version uses mostly cutting. It was an odd one time design idea. File set up for single sided printers. Used for: Reciprocity.
accordion fold
A single sheet folded back and forth in alternating directions — no cutting required. Used for: Portraits in Conservation.
explore the zines
Click any cover to flip through, or download the PDF to print & fold at home.
Citizen Scientist
Based on Citizen Scientist: Searching for Heroes and Hope in an Age of Extinction by Mary Ellen Hannibal. How non-scientists can contribute to ecological knowledge.
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Reciprocity
Based on Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer. A guidebook to following Original Instructions.
Download ZIP ↓
Design is Always Political
Based on Design Justice by Sasha Costanza-Chock. Practices to follow when designing for social change & equal access.
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The Marsh is All the Family I Got
Based on Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens. A fiction novel about survival and coming of age in the marsh.
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Portraits in Conservation
Based on Beloved Beasts: Fighting for Life in an Age of Extinction by Michelle Nijhuis. A non-fiction book about the history of wildlife conservation.
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Everything Is Data If You Look Long Enough
Based on Dear Data by Giorgia Lupi and Stefanie Posavec. A year-long project where two designers mailed each other hand-drawn data postcards across the Atlantic every week.
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The Design of Everyday Things
Based on The Design of Everyday Things by Don Norman. A classic book about the principles of design and usability.
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Writhe & Luxuriate
Based on Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene by Donna J. Haraway. Multispecies feminism and reunderstanding the anthropocene.
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I Want to Fall in Love with the World
Based on The Anthropocene Reviewed by John Green. A series of essays reviewing facets of the human-centered planet on a five-star scale.
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For the Other 90%
Based on Design for the Real World by Victor Papanek. A manifesto arguing that designers have a moral responsibility to design for the people who actually need it.
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The Earth Is the Client
Based on The Green Imperative by Victor Papanek. A follow-up to Design for the Real World focused on ecology and what it means to design responsibly for the planet.
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Data Has a Shape
Based on Information is Beautiful by David McCandless. A visual book about how data finds its shape and what happens when you design for understanding.
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Curiosity Is a Method
Based on Research for People Who (Think They) Would Rather Create by Dirk Vis. A practical book about why research and making are not as different as you think.
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PARKS
Based on Parks by Brian Kelley. A look at the visual design language of American parks, from signs and maps to typefaces and trailheads.
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Who Can Afford to Be Critical?
Based on Who Can Afford to Be Critical? by Afonso Matos. A sharp book about the economics of critical design practice and who actually gets to push back.
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Everything on a Grid
Based on Grid Systems in Graphic Design by Josef Müller-Brockmann. The Swiss grid bible. Constraint as foundation, structure as freedom.
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The Field Guide
Based on Extra Bold by Ellen Lupton et al. A feminist, inclusive, anti-racist field guide for graphic designers written by many voices.
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Designed for You
Based on User Friendly by Cliff Kuang. A history of human-centered design from cockpit failures in World War II to the iPhone.
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Making as a Way of Knowing
Based on Design Anthropology by Wendy Gunn et al. What happens when design and anthropology start talking to each other.
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What Design Actually Does
Based on How to Use Graphic Design to Sell Things... by Michael Bierut. Essays on what graphic design actually does once it leaves your hands.
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