Hannah Mack, class of 2012

The Project

Plain and simple I love Halloween, and needless to say a lot of people do. While I am probably not Halloween’s 4EVA #1 Fan— I am someone who completely obsesses over all things orange and black for 31+ days.

I also love publication design. I love the fine typographic details and the physical act of holding a beautiful editorial piece in your hands (confession, I have a massive GQ Collection). I took Kristin Spilman’s publication design class and it pushed my love and respect for publication to a greater level. For a project in this class I made a two color zine focusing on my love of Halloween. It helped to push my personal aesthetic as a designer and served as the start of a long relationship I cultivated between publication design and Halloween. It was in the sense, the birth of my thesis, Halloween Queen.

Halloween Queen was an installation. A publication fueled, design savvy, interactive, Halloween installation. I like to think it was funny and charming— maybe a little weird, but exciting, nonetheless. It grew and evolved over time, straying a bit from my original concept, yet becoming a project that in the end I am wildly proud of.

Hannah's Advice

1. Make this project anything you want— this is the time to think up some ridiculous idea in your head and execute it to the fullest extent.

2. Make sure that working on your project is fun & not a chore. HAVE FUN PEOPLE, HAVE FUN.

3. Straddle the fine line between motivated excitement and sleepless fear. You want to push yourself to make something unexpected and great, but you don’t want your body to break out in hives.

4. Don’t live on Cheetos and Diet Coke. That is a horrible idea.

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Hannah is currently a designer at Anthropologie in Philadelphia.
See more of her work at cargocollective.com/hannahmack.