The Cicada’s Cry Zine
Spring 2024
Concept
Like the creature mark, this assignment focused on creating a visual metaphor using typography and simplified forms to communicate a haiku poem. Thinking about structure, simplicity, and directness, I used the following poem for my assignment,
In the cicada’s cry
No sign can foretell
How soon it must die
- Matsuo Basho
No sign can foretell
How soon it must die
- Matsuo Basho
Approach
Since witnessing the cicada awakening of 2021, I was drawn to Basho's poem and its concept of life being fragile.Research
This consisted of reading about cicadas, finding photos, and developing ideas for describing them.
Attributes:- Loud!! Very loud- Emerge from the ground in massive swarms- Only appear every few years- Red eyes
Attributes:- Loud!! Very loud- Emerge from the ground in massive swarms- Only appear every few years- Red eyes
Sketches
Considering attributes, the sketching phase explored creating a composition that connected all the poem's lines.Variations
Developed variations of swarms and forms of cicadas. Both as a more abstract form of tones and as a more literal form with using the apostrophe as the body.Digital Iterations
Created a stronger sense of how to depict the poem. A pop of red was incorporated to create an even stronger focal point and represent the red cicada eyes.