Does Everyone in America Have Anxiety?
Summer Wojtas
This book explores the growing prevalence of anxiety in America. Through a series of writings and images sequenced to simulate the varying emotions and ups and downs of having anxiety, the author processes her own journey with mental health. Each design decision was made intentionally in order to evoke a feeling of anxiety. Spacing, size, hierarchy, and color all contribute to this feeling. Pages with full blocks of text, or big letters with barely any spacing, function to overwhelm the reader. A page with only a few words or a full spread image gives the mind a rest.
Intentionality is something that is important to mental health recovery, as is awareness. Recovery is learning who one is and what one likes to do because one can finally see out of the thick fog of anxiety. It’s being intentional about how life is lived and how time is spent. These two things go hand-in-hand, and these principles guide design, as well as life. The purpose of creating this book was not necessarily for anyone else besides myself. However, I hope that by putting what I have learned and processed about my own mental health out there, people will inherently understand something about themselves from that vulnerability and from the design that provokes those feelings.