Love Letters to San Jose (LL2SJ), a zine operating under @sanjosestrong, aims to share love letters of San Jose residents and amplify the work of local artists.

Initially, my role involved adhering to brand guidelines and creating simple carousel posts for the Instagram. Wanting more, I expanded my responsibilities to video editing and enhancing the brand identity through additional illustrations into the existing collection.

I designed Instagram carousel posts, using paper textures and illustrations to create a handmade feel. Each slide bleeds into the next, often with torn paper visuals, creating a seamless experience for users as they scroll through each slide.

LL2SJ’s branding visuals are “handmade,” which is showcased by the two doodles Kiki made, using a brush that mimics a pencil.

To strengthen consistency across our zine pages, we identified the need to expand our collection of element. In response, I designed additional illustrations inspired by Kiki’s style, using the same brush as the original illustrations and adhering to LL2SJ’s style guide.

One notable change I made to the illustrations was incorporating a paper texture to the illustrations. This detail added an extra layer of depth to the elements and reinforced the “handmade” aesthetic.

Final black & white and colored versions of the logo. Simple and cozy.

I created flyer designs for Love Letters to San Jose to market their active submission cycle. The theme for LL2SJ's zine this cycle was "places in San Jose."

While exploring designs on Canva, I was inspired by the simplistic doodle tone in Take Care Creative's flyer design. I decided to use this flyer as my primary inspiration.

With the theme, "places in San Jose," in mind, I imagined replacing the foods from the original design with San Jose landmarks. Given San Jose's size, I decided it would be a good idea to design flyers personalized to each areas of the city.

I started listing landmarks and elements unique to San Jose and organized it with the help of a map of the city I found on Wikimedia Commons.  

With the help of my design team, we created drafts of the flyers of each neighborhood of San Jose.

I finalized each sketch in Adobe Illustrator and used Canva to add the logo and typography.