Our Next Chapter

Identity & Editorial & Interaction 2026

Everyone's Upkeeping Something

Digital Zine
99 × 210mm

★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Our Next Chapter is a digital zine about the things we keep. Teddy bear, school backpack, and mother's high heels; each object gets a Lifetime membership card. It's made for the screen, inspired by teen magazines and Disney Channel web pages I grew up around.

Things I Never Threw Out
The inheritances I'm keeping alive are small and kind of accidental. A teddy that used to be my best friend, then went under the bed, then into a moving box, and never got thrown out. A backpack nobody remembers packing. Shoes that weren't mine. Nobody decided to keep any of them. They just kept not getting binned, and that's the part I found interesting, because the upkeep happens without anyone calling it that.

Terms & Conditions
Cards and warranties have terms like "no renewal required, no returns accepted", which is a funny thing to say about objects you can't return anyway. So I borrowed the form. On the blank card, member since is whenever it started mattering, and status is up to you. I layered paper and grain textures over the cards so they look handled rather than new, since nothing in this zine is new.
There are two ways to become a member. Cut out the blank card on the spread, or make one on your phone: upload the photo, type three lines and save it.

Next to The Next Chapter
The group exhibition (with Isabella, Lyebin and Qinxi) follows a room growing up through the objects a character keeps or lets go. The zine asks the same question from the other end: my own memories in a magazine's voice, with no room. I kept it separate on purpose so the two can sit next to each other.

Masthead
Photography: iPhone 16 Pro
Zine spreads: Adobe InDesign
Membership cards: Adobe Illustrator
Viewer and card maker: HTML, CSS, and JavaScript via Visual Studio Code
Time: about 30 hours

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Become a Member Become a Member of Lifetime Upkeeper's Society!