books
16-page comic book, hand-drawn, with digitized handwriting,
50 handbound copies.
Somewhere is a 16-page comic book I drew, wrote, and designed about my experience growing up and moving away from home. It is mostly autobiographical and explores how our identity is often connected to a sense of place or placelessness.
50 handbound copies.
Somewhere is a 16-page comic book I drew, wrote, and designed about my experience growing up and moving away from home. It is mostly autobiographical and explores how our identity is often connected to a sense of place or placelessness.
illustration
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poster design
typeface design
Poetisa is a bold, decorative typeface for poets and designers alike.
Poetisa is a decorative typeface inspired by the Mexican avant-garde art movement of the 20s and 30s, Stridentism. Poetisa uses bold, angular counterforms and art deco aesthetics to create a typeface meant to catch one’s eye on a poster or to be used sparingly with small blocks of text, such as a poem. The word “poetisa” refers to the Spanish word for “poet” after the founder of the Stridentism art movement, a poet named Manuel Maples Arce. Arce is known for his poem “Urbe (Super-poema bolchevique en 5 cantos)” of which the typeface takes inspiration. While the word “poetisa” is considered a feminine word in Spanish, by using the feminine form, the typeface’s name gives reference to the female poets and type designers who are often less known than men working in the same fields.
comics
Special Feature is a comic that explores how we like to see ourselves as characters, and our lives as stories. I tease out the difference between what feels real and what is exaggerated in my life.
visual storytelling
http://celiaruley.github.io/nowhere/
Nowhere is the story precursor to my comic book, Somewhere. It is a text-based video game that explores the feeling of placelessness by being set “nowhere in particular”. The game asks you a series of questions that advance the plot, inspired by text adventures and interactive fiction. Click here to play.
on light & water
short film
Inspired by accessible design and using captions as poetry, this short film is a meditation on light and water. The film explores how captions can poetically describe what’s right outside our window, every morning and with every storm. Click here to watch.
UPROOT: BIPOC Visions Of Our Future
(2024-2025)Print zine, posters, custom illustrations, social media graphics
Zine cover photo: Madylin Nixon-Taplet of Love Önwa Photography
UPROOT is a project created to connect and build community around our collective role in the agricultural food system, with a focus on centering BIPOC identities. The project began between three groups: Constellation Collective (formerly known as DurmPAC), Art as Method (instagram.com/art.as.method/), and CEFS (cefs.ncsu.edu/). This collaboration paved the way for organizing community workshops, artist talks, a submission call, and a curated exhibition of young, local BIPOC artists' work. These events have been documented, in combination with written essays and more, in both print and digital publications.
For the 64-page print edition, I designed the page layout in InDesign. I also hand-drew several custom illustrations and portraits throughout the zine and on the back cover. In addition to this work, I created posters and social media graphics to promote and archive the project online.
The digital version is available online, by designer Jett Pavlica. Jett and I worked together to ensure consistency across the print and digital formats.
