Shelf Life Magazine uses the visual logic of food expiration dates to examine the lifespan of human experience. Objects associated with different stages of life are placed inside food containers, pairing familiar systems of packaging and labeling with personal artifacts and memory.

By aligning expiration dates with moments of emotional intensity, this publication considers how experiences peak, fade, and transform over time. Childhood objects, such as toys, remain materially intact, even as our relationship to them shifts. What changes is not their existence, but their relevance and the conditions under which they are encountered.

Expiration is treated not as loss, but as accumulation. Past experiences retain value without needing to remain active or unchanged.

Through the everyday metaphor of storage, preservation, and disposal, Shelf Life Magazine offers a restrained reflection on growth, memory, and the passage of time.

Edited by Katherine Baker

Designed by Olivia Sommo

Published by Moretti Design, 2024

Softcover, 54 pages, full color, 

ISBN: 979-8-99-062500-6