UCSD - SYN 100
2025
Triton Times
A brand new digital zine/newsletter containing a real inside scoop of current and former UCSD students’ campus experience.
Driving Question
How can we create a platform for UC San Diego students to explore how their experiences and campus life have changed with UCSD’s ongoing expansion and its promotion of “sustainable” practices, and what it reveals about capitalism and climate injustice?
We feel that UCSD is constantly adding to its campus and the amenities for its students, or so they claim to be. We were curious about how student experiences have changed over the years, especially with the new idea of sustainable practices implemented throughout campus.
We notice that alumni touch on the fact that the campus has been different from when they were on campus, which sparked our curiosity about how necessary these changes actually are.
Goals
What we hoped to achieve
Have students reflect on their experiences on campus, such as housing, dining, transportation, campus life, and development, and question their environmental impact
To allow students to critically think about how these harmful environmental impacts of certain systems on campus are actually tied to capitalism
Compare the experiences of alumni (in the 2000s era) to the experiences of current students to see if there has been any progress in the campus’s sustainability.
Design
Our ideation process
Brainstorming design concept directions
From the start, I wanted the digital design to match our writers' voice. A pop-glam or early-2000s bubblegum aesthetic would've pushed the tone toward satire and unseriousness — the opposite of what we wanted. We landed on a scrapbook-y feel instead, which made sense given our audience: current and past college students. It gave the magazine a diary-like, authentic quality that felt true to both the writing and UCSD's student voices.
Magazine games
Aside from reading the text, we wanted to make the magazine interactive as well. We took common magazine games and created our own with its content adjacent to article content.
Photos
