Cyclic Decode

Designer:

Leilani Liu

Date:

01/2025

Size

4*7 in

Pages

50p

Cyclic Decode is an experimental narrative system disguised as a book. It explores the breakdown and repetition of perception through fragmented code, disrupted memory, and visual loops. Designed as both a story and a puzzle, the book invites readers to decode a corrupted timeline—one that constantly resets itself.

The project blends narrative design, visual systems, and symbolic coding. It uses color, morse code, and structural mirroring to tell the story of a protagonist caught in a recurring system crash—where reality glitches, identity erases, and time restarts.

A–A: The opening cycle. Black ink represents "PA" (Perspective A), and red marks PB1 and PB2—fragments of a secondary voice interfering with perception. The reader begins with "I" awakening into a world that feels slightly off.

B–B: The disruption deepens. Using the same black/red structure as A–A, but shifting in rhythm and placement, this chapter amplifies the system’s instability. The whispers grow louder, the code begins to fragment.

E – Ending: The collapse. A final attempt to stabilize the system, but the red has overtaken the black. Reality slips. Perspective A fades.

A1 – Cycle A: A mirrored return. Roles flip—black now represents PB, and red becomes PA. The cycle resets, but not quite the same. The reader begins again, haunted by memory of a past loop.

The book uses binary code, morse patterns, and typographic disruption to simulate system interference. Are encoded into visual elements using morse dashes, hidden folds, and interrupted grids. These messages hint at agency, resistance, and control—though the reader never fully knows who is speaking.

Color becomes code.

Black represents the dominant internal perspective.
Red symbolizes interference, memory errors, or external control.
Their positions shift as chapters progress, suggesting takeover and reversal.

Morse sequences and glitch typography create a layered, reactive experience. Words fracture mid-sentence. Sentences vanish mid-page. Readers are forced to choose: follow the main thread or get lost in corrupted details.

Pages are printed with alternating textures—smooth, matte, and translucent stocks—to convey distortion and presence. Pages fold, unfold, and sometimes overlay one another.
Laser-cut windows reveal hidden codes. Binding structure is mirrored, allowing the reader to flip the book upside down and re-enter from a reversed perspective.
This looping form reinforces the cyclical structure of the story.

At the center is the repeated phrase:
"SYSTEM RESET IS IN PROGRESS"
—a signal that identity, memory, and time are not linear but constantly overwritten.

Cyclic Decode is not meant to be read in a straight line. It is navigated.
It simulates what it feels like to question your own reality—to not know if you're decoding something, or if you're the one being decoded.Through design, code, and repetition, it builds a world that collapses inward… and always begins again.