Amber Colón

Graphic Designer & Illustrator

Hi! I’m a graphic designer and illustrator with a passion for branding, whimsy, and music. I love using my interdisciplinary skillset to create atmospheric designs that fuse playfulness with sophistication.

Outside of design, I love horror movies, mystery books, crocheting, and making playlists!



Contemporary Healing Through Traditional Practices

Book Design


Creative Fields
Graphic Design, Publication Design, Illustration

Year
2021
A 100-page compilation book of songs, articles, rituals, and collages that are related to West African-based spirituality (specifically voodoo, hoodoo, brujeria, and santeria). Focuses on how people of color today can work with these practices to heal, self-empower, and challenge racist narratives that exist around the subject.

The book is seperated into four parts: Challenging the Narrative, 

All text excluding the introduction and editor’s note were collected by me through research. I fully designed and printed the book and made the included collages by hand. Measures 8.5 x 11 x 0.5 inches.




Initial Collages

Handmade collages from part 1 of the book, conveying expectations vs. the reality of modern-day West African spirituality. The first 3 pictured below represent negative expectations and stereotypes of West African spirituality being scary, malicious, or dangerous. The 3 collages below those represent the reality of its uses among people of color including empowerment, appreciation of the body, connection to land, sisterhood, and gratitude.

Stereotypes





Reality






Book Samples
After making the collages,  I  used them to form part 1, challenging the narrative of my full compilation book and made 3 more parts based on my reasearch:
 





Contemporary Healing Cards
A sample card set that I made as an extension of the book design. The deck is seperated into two sections: The Learning and The Unlearning. The Learning embodies the “reality” section of the book by describing ways that West-African spirituality is used among people of color today and offering guides to different methods. The Unlearning embodies the “expectations and stereotypes” section of the book by describing historical misrepresentations and ways to begin unlearning negative narratives.