Julia Jacquette’s Playground of My Mind can be defined as a visual memoir. Although it does not go as in depth into her personal history as a typical memoir would, its visual elements present their own ways of creating a personal feel to the book. One way in which Jacquette accomplished this is through the appearance of the text, which looks as though it has been hand-written. The look of having every word written out by hand imbues the text with more personal meaning and importance than can be felt by looking at the text of a typical printed book, which gains import only after it has been read. The handwriting works together with the placement of the images and the way that these pictures are presented almost as looking like polaroids to create a kind of scrapbook feel.

Another strategy Jacquette uses to create a more intimate feel to the book is leaving some of the pale gray and blue lines she used to plan out the spacing of the pages in the background, as can be seen in the image above. This allows the reader/viewer to feel as if they are getting an inside look into Jacquette’s process of creation. The lines are made even more interesting with the fact that they are only included in some pages, while other pages have totally clean white backgrounds. This reveals the intentionality of leaving the lines behind, possibly as a device to draw in the reader.