Decora Zine

Tasked with the challenge to explore a unique subculture, this zine was created. Decora, a subculture born in Japan, first began when Japanese youth looked to break against the uniform nature and explore more creative fashion outlets. Although there were many other subcultures preceding Decora, this seems to be the most internationally known subculture due to a publication called FRUITS Magazine gaining popularity in the early 2000s. FRUITS was incredibly influential in the sense that it provided a way for the mass public to see trends appearing in the streets of Harajuku. The founder, Shoichi Aoki, started the magazine as a way to share interesting clothing styles/outfits he would take photographs of, but it quickly became one of the most important documented publications of J-Fashion.

In a way, this zine works to commemorate FRUITS and honor not only the incredibly creative outfits youth created but as well as what it brought to the rest of the world. With all of this in mind, I experimented a lot with the spreads- trying to combine a lot of analog and digital aspects into one. I found a copy of FRESH FRUITS, which was a publication that showed strictly outfits from the magazine, and scanned-in models. I also scanned dozens of textures, stickers, stamps, etc to use in my designs. I tried to highlight the nature of layering, bright colors, and textures found within Decora itself, hoping to emulate its core.