For its 27th volume, Shades of Gray, the official student literary folio of De La Salle-College of Saint Benilde, tapped into the idea of secrets and ghosts.
As the creative director, I was in-charge of conceptualizing the overall aesthetic and mood of the folio, making sure that the visuals would best interpret the literary pieces included in it. Together with Katsy, the literary editor, we both agreed that the key visual point of the folio was to make it raw and personal.
The braille characters that were die-cut on the cover translates to “S.O.G.,” an abbreviation for Shades of Gray. Our head suggested the words “handle with care,” be placed on the bottom of the cover. It’s a play on how the readers should take extra care of the folio (because of its fragile exposed spine) and of the secrets inside it.
We wanted the folio to be kind of like a diary or a notebook where we doodle and write random stuff. Pegging the book “Wreck It Journal,” we added perforated pages where readers can write based on the prompts, and tear them after.
To make every literary work intimate, I asked the writers (or the photographer/illustrator assigned to the literary piece) to write the title of their work in a paper. This resulted to a more authentic “diary” feel and this gave more dynamic to the folio.
The folio was published and released on October 2014. It was well-received by the students of the College. On March 2015, the folio received a Merit of Excellence on the Publications category from the Philippine Student Quill Awards.
