update on my WIP industrial ag zine:

starting in the early 1970s, the dream of scientific/industrial agriculture began to lose its shine for a variety of complicated reasons. although the dream lost some of its luster, the reality of industrial ag only intensified and globalized into the monstrous international network we have today.

as i'm picking out the pieces of text and images to include in the spread i'm calling "the end", i'm adjusting the visual style to match the visual style of the 1970s. we're done with the breathless "miracles!" of technicolor 1960s scientific ag and are now moving into a more grounded and restrained style, which i think is related to the contracting of american visions of progress that came with the oil crisis, intensification of the vietnam war, social movements exposing cracks in the american image of "abundance for all", the degradation of the american environment, and the hollowing out of cities with deindustrialization and white flight.

so below (on the left) is a little snippet of the spread - still in progress.

on the right is the cover of a 1974 USDA report called "protecting crops and the environment." i think it's an excellent example of "1970s business report" visual style.

btw, many thanks to the typography nerds who helped me identify the fonts used in some of the archival materials i'm using. "1970s business report" is such a distinct and instantly-recognizable visual style, and i wanted to evoke a bit of that. there was a lot of helvetica and i'm using "helvetica world", which is the only version of helvetica available for free on canva 🤷

#zines #art #wip #agriculture #agriculturalhistory #food #typography #fonts #visualdesign