Isn’t That Just Life?
What: Book Art, Illustration
Who: Course Project
When: 2021
Isn’t that just life? is an autobiographical book that uses my personal Covid-pandemic life to reflect the larger social environment in 2021. The double-sided accordion calendar book consists of a 12-month illustration story and a vivid 52-week text and image personal diary. I developed a grid system that symbolizes the basic formation of everyday life, time. The stretches, variations and breaks of the grid system indicate the routines and unexpected changes that happened in life during the year. The red-orange colour represents the moment when I tested positive and started self-isolation at home. I used a bag of oranges to count down my self-isolation days, which became the most representative memory of my COVID-19 life. The oranges also became a symbol that encouraged me to live through the uncertainty and the global pandemic with a positive attitude. I created a black-humor visual storytelling based on my personal experience and the social environment. The bright colour and black-humour narrations reached a jocose balance. The book inspired readers to think about the close relationship between an individual's life and society, and how recording one's life could become evidence to show a particular period of human history.