My suggestions for the cover of the 3rd issue of Mæna (2012) – Type, Nationality and Language.

Blood is a common factor between nations in uniting them, while languages do the opposite – they build barriers, seperating them.

The first version, the handwritten one, I did with my own blood. I was encouraged to try and take the blood idea further, so I decided to cover almost my entire upper body in blood and write the title in inverse. Instead of using human blood I used sheep blood.

The last cover is the magazine’s title itself, “mæna”, which has a double meaning of stare and spine in Icelandic – bursting from an open mouth in the form of several writing tools.