Salt & Mirrors & Cats
Illustration, Branding, Design and Layout, Project Management, Production
A vintage-style literary anthology about superstitions from around the world. Volume 1 contains eleven short stories, four pieces of flash fiction, five poems, five essays, and six pieces of art. It was announced on January 13th, 2023. To our delight, it was fully crowdfunded via Kofi on February 11, 2023! Volume 1 officially released on October 31st, 2023 along with a six episode podcast. Backers received a free digital version and their name listed in the printed copies. This zine is in collaboration with a pair of talented folklorists and The Alternative Stories and Fake Realities Podcast.
The front and back cover and interior layout was inspired by vintage storybooks. The goal of the design was to create a spooky, yet cozy space reminiscent of reading ghost stories on a gloomy day. I have also hidden small callbacks to familiar superstitions throughout the book for readers to discover, such as there being 13 four leaf clovers placed throughout the back cover design.
Salt & Mirrors & Cats is available for digital download and worldwide shipping here.
It can also be purchased at Treadwell’s Books in London.
Follow us on Twitter and Instagram for future submissions calls for our next issue!
The Logo
I wanted to keep the theme of mirrored images throughout the zine, so this was my starting point for the logo. I experimented with vintage salt boxes, but ultimately decided that it began looking like the branding for a funeral home. The vintage salt box was better suited for an icon (see above). I also went with a simplified mirror frame to leave room to tie the logo in with the finalized zine cover.
I developed the logo further with customized type, but found a font for the headers that was a better fit with the art style, so I used a free font called Essays. Everything was leaning more towards cozy rather than spooky, so I made the hand mirror into a void-like scrying mirror.
