BEYOND BARCODES
Editorial Design
Graphic Design
Editorial Design
Graphic Design
TOOLS
Adobe Photoshop
Adobe Illustrator
Procreate
Adobe InDesign
Adobe Photoshop
Adobe Illustrator
Procreate
Adobe InDesign
YEAR
2024-25
2024-25
PROJECT BRIEF
The objective was to investigate how consumer culture silently shapes our emotional relationship with needs and wants. The project began as a broader inquiry: Can everyday transactions reveal hidden narratives about identity, value, and emotional labor? And how might visual storytelling give form to these invisible tensions? The challenge was to design a system that makes this emotional residue of spending both visible and relatable.
The objective was to investigate how consumer culture silently shapes our emotional relationship with needs and wants. The project began as a broader inquiry: Can everyday transactions reveal hidden narratives about identity, value, and emotional labor? And how might visual storytelling give form to these invisible tensions? The challenge was to design a system that makes this emotional residue of spending both visible and relatable.
CONCEPT AND PROCESS
This zine critiques the pervasive reach of consumer culture across needs and wants. Organized into five categories—groceries, essentials, dining, vanity, and experiences—it uses illustration and narrative text to explore the emotional landscape of everyday spending. "Beyond Barcodes" emerged from a personal observation: my unintentional habit of hoarding receipts. What first seemed like a meaningless collection revealed deeper emotional patterns around money, guilt, and value.
This zine critiques the pervasive reach of consumer culture across needs and wants. Organized into five categories—groceries, essentials, dining, vanity, and experiences—it uses illustration and narrative text to explore the emotional landscape of everyday spending. "Beyond Barcodes" emerged from a personal observation: my unintentional habit of hoarding receipts. What first seemed like a meaningless collection revealed deeper emotional patterns around money, guilt, and value.
Through a designer’s lens, I reimagined receipts as entry points into broader conversations about consumption. This led to the creation of a zine that transforms the mundane into a series of visual reflections, encouraging viewers to question their relationship with spending and to engage more consciously with the consumer systems they participate in.
OVERVIEW OF THE ZINE
COVER
The cover features the title of the zine arranged in a bold typographic composition. The thick and thin strokes of the chosen display font resemble the visual essence of a standard barcode. Some of the heavier strokes are filled with a fragmented collage of items extracted from receipts, symbolizing the overwhelming accumulation of everyday purchases.
The cover features the title of the zine arranged in a bold typographic composition. The thick and thin strokes of the chosen display font resemble the visual essence of a standard barcode. Some of the heavier strokes are filled with a fragmented collage of items extracted from receipts, symbolizing the overwhelming accumulation of everyday purchases.
This layered visual effect hints at the hidden narratives of consumer culture, setting the tone for the zine’s deeper exploration of how transactions, needs, and desires intertwine.
SPREAD 1 // THEME : GROCERIES
This spread captures the exhausting cycle of necessity and urgency embedded in basic survival. Distorted receipts and barcodes scattered across the layout evoke the endless repetition of stocking up before everything inevitably goes bad.
This spread captures the exhausting cycle of necessity and urgency embedded in basic survival. Distorted receipts and barcodes scattered across the layout evoke the endless repetition of stocking up before everything inevitably goes bad.
The maximal, cluttered composition reinforces the scale at which groceries are purchased—gritty, urgent, and chaotic. Some of the barcode lines are textured with overlapping text scanned from actual receipts, adding another layer of fragmentation and amplifying the sensory overload.
At the center, a decaying apple—its form breaking into barcode lines—embodies the tension between nourishment and waste, between intention and loss.
The typography and layered textures mirror the overwhelming reality of grocery shopping: essential, constant, and burdened by the quiet stress of perishable time.
SPREAD 2 // THEME : ESSENTIALS
This spread captures the monotonous grind of acquiring non-negotiable survival items—the overlooked necessities that quietly anchor daily life.
This spread captures the monotonous grind of acquiring non-negotiable survival items—the overlooked necessities that quietly anchor daily life.
Essentials here refer to non-food purchases that sustain basic living: soap, toothpaste, detergent, dish soap, utensils, and similar everyday goods.
A heavy, oversized, repeating heading of "NEEDS" anchors the composition, while the repeated illustration of a soap bar emphasizes the theme of essential maintenance. Alongside it, the phrase "you gotta get what you gotta get," repeated like a mantra, creates a hypnotic rhythm that echoes the mechanical nature of buying necessities without pause or celebration.
The central cluster of fragmented, glitched receipts reflects the silent buildup of these transactions over time—an invisible but constant erosion of resources.
The stark layout and minimal palette reinforce the cold, transactional energy of this category, where survival is reduced to barcodes, prices, and a steady, unavoidable march through everyday needs.
SPREAD 3 // THEME : EATING OUT
This spread captures the emotional high and low of indulgent spending on dining out.
This spread captures the emotional high and low of indulgent spending on dining out.
A dripping, distorted fork, constructed from barcode-like lines, anchors the layout—symbolizing the messy thrill of indulgence and the guilt that inevitably follows.
Winding strands of text slither across the spread, mimicking the swirling emotional cycle of reward, justification, guilt, and regret.
The stark black background heightens the drama, reflecting the internal conflict between fleeting joy and lasting doubt.
This layout mirrors the emotional weight of treating oneself—where satisfaction fades quickly, but the cost lingers.
SPREAD 4 // THEME : VANITY SHOPPING
"Vanity shopping" here refers to purchases driven by identity, beauty, and self-image.
This spread critiques the emotional tug-of-war embedded in vanity spending—where purchases promise transformation but often leave behind guilt and self-doubt.
A broken compact mirror, its surfaces etched with barcode lines, symbolizes the fractured promises consumer culture sells through
beauty, fashion, and self-care.
beauty, fashion, and self-care.
The swirling, almost chaotic arrangement of text mirrors the flee-ting thrill of buying into a better version of oneself, and the inevitable crash that follows.
Sharp, tilted typography and shattered visual elements reflect the tension between appearance and reality—the emotional cost of
trying to purchase identity.
trying to purchase identity.
SPREAD 5 // THEME : EXPERIENCES
This spread explores the tension between joy and guilt embedded in spending on experiences—travel, entertainment, and fleeting moments of escape.
This spread explores the tension between joy and guilt embedded in spending on experiences—travel, entertainment, and fleeting moments of escape.
Boarding passes, admission stubs, and scattered barcodes float across a stark black background, symbolizing how even memories are tied to transactions.
Short, punchy one-liners mimic the way experiences are emotionally processed: first as priceless escapes, then as lingering financial weight.
The fragmented, slightly disjointed layout mirrors how consumer culture has turned even intangible memories into commodities—sold, stamped, and priced.
This final spread closes the zine’s emotional arc, revealing how the pursuit of meaning and joy itself has been barcoded.
DESIGN PROCESS
I began by analyzing the collection of receipts I had accumulated over the years. The most instinctual approach was to sort them by category, which revealed five key areas of spending: groceries, essentials, dining, vanity, and experiences.
I began by analyzing the collection of receipts I had accumulated over the years. The most instinctual approach was to sort them by category, which revealed five key areas of spending: groceries, essentials, dining, vanity, and experiences.
Groceries and dining had the largest number of receipts, followed by essentials, vanity items, and experience-based purchases like travel or entertainment.
VISUAL EXPLORATIONS
Initially, I explored visual styles without committing to a final format for the project. I experimented freely—testing type, composition, and layouts in an open-ended way.
Initially, I explored visual styles without committing to a final format for the project. I experimented freely—testing type, composition, and layouts in an open-ended way.
This phase was driven by intuition and material play, focused on transforming mundane typographic and barcode elements into something expressive.
FIRST DESIGN ITERATION
The first structured iteration took the form of a black-and-white poster series. Each poster was based on a real receipt, using its typographic and data elements as raw material for visual reinterpretation.
The first structured iteration took the form of a black-and-white poster series. Each poster was based on a real receipt, using its typographic and data elements as raw material for visual reinterpretation.
While this direction helped establish a cohesive aesthetic, it lacked narrative clarity and emotional depth.
SECOND DESIGN ITERATION
This realization prompted a shift toward a more narrative-driven approach. I moved away from isolated poster experiments and began developing a zine format that could house a sequence of interconnected vignettes—each centered around a distinct category of spending and expressed through illustration, layout, and narrative text.
This realization prompted a shift toward a more narrative-driven approach. I moved away from isolated poster experiments and began developing a zine format that could house a sequence of interconnected vignettes—each centered around a distinct category of spending and expressed through illustration, layout, and narrative text.
To shape the emotional tone of each spread, I created mind maps for each category, reflecting on the feelings, and associations they evoked. These mind maps served as the foundation for translating abstract emotions into visual form.
Before settling into the final aesthetic of the zine, I explored a series of visual treatments to test different moods, textures, and compositions. These early experiments ranged from layered collages and gritty overlays to more literal treatments of receipt data.
Though ultimately discarded, they played a vital role in helping me understand what visual direction did not work in order to figure out what would work.
DESIGN CHOICES
The chosen display typeface (Harpagan) features thick and thin strokes that resemble barcode bars.
Select thick strokes are filled with dense textures made from item names extracted from scanned receipts, hinting at the overwhelming accumulation of everyday purchases.
The clean black-and-white palette reinforces the stark, utilitarian feel of barcodes and transaction slips.
The cluttered composition reflects survival, urgency, and my ongoing struggle with waste.
The decaying apple splitting into barcode lines visualizes the tension between nourishment and loss.
Overlapping receipt scans and barcode textures add a gritty, overwhelming feel—echoing the repetitive nature of grocery runs and the mental load of keeping up before things go bad.
A bold, repetitive "NEEDS" anchors the layout, reinforcing the mechanical nature of recurring, non-negotiable purchases.
The soap illustration is repeated to visually represent the kind of everyday items this spread explores.
This spread also follows a maximal composition reinforcing the nature of this category.
The glitching barcode-fork illustration reflects the messy thrill and guilt of dining out.
Curved text paths echo the seductive pull of consumption and emotional spirals.
This spread escalates the critique of consumer culture, highlighting how joy is packaged—and priced—as luxury.
The broken compact mirror acts as a central visual metaphor for self-image and identity shaped by consumerism.
Barcode lines within the mirror panels suggest the commodification of beauty.
Tilted, staggered typography adds to the instability of the composition, reflecting the emotional imbalance this category evokes.
The floating phrases (“You can’t refund a memory,” “Experience feels priceless—until the bill arrives.”) offer emotional contrast, evoking both nostalgia and regret.
The stark black background gives the spread a climactic weight, closing the zine on a reflective, bittersweet note.
The polaroid illustration represents how even memories are packaged and priced.
REFLECTION
This project taught me the power of narrative building—how design can carry not just visuals, but emotion, reflection, and meaning. What started as a personal inquiry into my spending habits gradually unfolded into a broader commentary on consumer culture, one that I believe others can relate to in their own unique ways. The zine format allowed me to craft vignettes that feel both intimate and universal, offering space for viewers to reflect on their own relationships with money, guilt, and indulgence.
Along the way, I discovered how effective black and white design can be. Stripping away color sharpened the focus on form, contrast, and content—particularly in how typography and illustration interact. Typography wasn’t just a design element; it became a voice, a rhythm, and in many places, a character in itself.
Ultimately, this thesis reminded me that even the most mundane materials—receipts, barcodes, everyday objects—can become vessels of storytelling when approached with intention.