Public Domain Magazines
Reframing the Archive with Color
Years of researching public-domain imagery for my work at Infobase gradually turned into a personal archive of images I found too interesting to leave behind. While searching collections including the Library of Congress, National Archives, New York Public Library, and NASA, I began saving unusual discoveries along with the historical information I found about them.
I experimented with different book sizes and papers before settling on three 8.5 × 11 magazine-format collections. Images were paired by subject, composition, color, or unexpected connections, with short captions providing historical context. Some photographs were left untouched, while others invited playful color treatments. The typography draws on the cut-and-paste look of the zines I made growing up.
