Speedrunning – Magazine Spread
Portfolio Project
I submitted these two spreads for the Society of Publication Designers SPD-U 2021 Student Competition, under the Design category. The format of the title and byline were aspects of the competition, and I’ve obfuscated the text because my original copy was adapted from an excellent Inverse article on the subject.
Speedrunning is where you play a game (frequently competitively) with objectives that are speed related, or unintended by the creators of the game. The name was coined for trying to finish games as quickly as possible, but it’s ballooned to include basically any specific way to play a game. For example, playing a game that isn’t guitar hero, using the guitar hero drum set can be speedrunning. I’ve never been personally involved in speedrunning, but I watch a lot of videos created by community members on the topic.
While the space has always been deeply competitive, it’s been my impression from the outside that it’s also a very cooperative space. When someone finds a new way to do something faster, everyone benefits, even as they all continue to compete. It’s like watching a group of unaffiliated racers cooperatively discover the track they’re running on - along with shortcuts, pitfalls, and strategies, even while they continue to compete.
I’m not affiliated with Inverse in any way.
