April Lee is currently a design student at UCLA. Like all designers, she can and does dip her toes into other forms of expression like photography, illustration, bookmaking, and more. We don’t remember how we stumbled onto her work but there’s one project we believe she did for a school assignment that is pretty cool: two meditations on the Santa Monica Pier in book form. They’re straightforward means of showcasing this Westside destination that is done in such an effective manner that we thought we’d share.

The two books are Gradients and Mirrors and they are exactly what they claim to be: a Santa Monica Pier visit juxtaposed with a color gradient and a mirrored examination of the Santa Monica Pier. In both books, she uses really nice black and white photos taken by classmates, good bases for abstracting images. Gradients breaks apart and juxtaposes Pier moments with bright colors that move from a tomato red to a sea green. The colors chosen for this gradient are quite representative of the Pier and appear to be pulled from a swatch collection many Los Angeles artists favor. Mirrors toys with the idea of forms and already existing reflections on the Pier. You have water forming reflections, many symmetrical manmade forms, and structures that lend themselves to repetition in their imagery. It’s an easy, cool trick.

Both books are really great looking and would make neat little zines to sell around town. It’s good to know that design students in town are adding new ways of exploring the city in simple ways: April Lee’s work is a perfect example of this. You can get more on her here.