Process

Before I began on my zine, I had wanted to focus on the theme of “People” from researching Boon Keng since it was a neighbourhood specially made for people and a very unique community of diversities; the old and young & diverse ethnic groups and religions living together.

Therefore, I wanted to focus on the people’s different AGES and CULTURES living in a small peaceful neighbourhood; loving together & interacting.

So, I thought of possible headings/ content to put in my zine:
1. People of Boon Keng (Title) [OFC / Outside Front Cover]
2. Content [ IFC / Inside Front Cover]
3. Introduction of People Living in Boon Keng [IFC/1]
4. Types of People [2/3]
5. Gathering Place [4/IBC Inside Back Cover]
6. “By Zer” (Name/ Signature) [OBC/ Outside Back Cover]

So I went to Pinterest to research over Zines that I had in mind. I was thinking of photobook concept where it focused more on the beauty of Boon Keng through photographs taken.

Concept 01: Photo Book

 

1. Third Person View of Boon Keng
   – “Boon Keng observed through the eyes of people there
2.  Target Audience: Tourists/ Youths who don’t know about Boon Keng
3.  Photographs of Boon Keng
4.  Minimum use of words
   – minimal so it has a clean look
5.  Colours should be like of Boon Keng
   – Pastels, soothing colours (Colour palette from Boon Keng itself)
6.  Hierarchical Grid
7.  After some researching, I was planning to add some illustrations to integrate with the photographs taken to have a more whimsical/ fun look into the zine just as Boon Keng is when it came to learning about the neighborhood

by Hsueh Wei-cheng

Companion Magazine #02; Photo by  Stefan Schuster

Movie Poster Set by ACF | 꿈보다 해몽 A Matter of Interpretation 02

CONCEPT 02: Traveller’s journal

1. Third Person View
   – but by a tourist that visited Boon Keng and followed my infographic therefore self-expression
2.  Target Audience: Personal, therefore seen by “Friends”
3.  Photographs of Boon Keng’s people
4.  Lots of words that are personal and explanations
   – Overlapped and handwritten with lots of thoughts
5.  Handmade therefore, I’m thinking colours are brown and paper texture
   – Old and overused? Like it is dog-eared and used
6.  Classical Layout
7.  Added with watercolor drawings/ illustrations
   – As if the tourists captured the place with their own sketches other than photos to take in the sense of the place

@thedailywriting | Instagram

@mydocumentedlife | Instagram

@inacreativebubble | Instagram

After consultation with Joy, the Traveller’s Journal was a more interesting approach to the Zine so I started first with Pages 2 and 3 as it would be the basis of the whole zine.

Page 2 & Page 3

Page 4 & IFC

After the Individual Consultation, the 2 Spreads did show the “scrapbook” feeling however the text was hard to be read as it was handwritten so was told to explore san serif fonts or other handwritten fonts that are more readable.

 On the Group Consultation, I had printed both handwritten font and sans serif font so that it helps in finding which would be better for reading and the sans serif font was chosen so I went along with that 🙂

Final

Before the Final, I had test printed it to check on the whether the colours are well print and whether the paper was suited with the print and concept.

Test Prints

The one at Bras Basah was laser printed so I went along with that for my final printing while the one at North Spine, even though I printed with special settings, it still had cut off with margins and a “white border”.

Final Print

OFC

IFC + PAGE 1

PAGE 2 + PAGE 3

PAGE 4 + IBC

OBC

OBC + OFC

During the silent critique, the feedback was given that the font was too big which I overlooked over when being concerned over whether a handwritten or sans serif font would work when doing the test print. Also, there was a feedback about too much text and there isn’t any resting space for the reader to rest their eyes on and I do agree and I could take the feedback to work on the zine 🙂

After the whole project, I think I’ve come to like and appreciate small neighbourhoods of Singapore. The little details of colours and the people living in it whenever I pass a neighbourhood that I’m not familiar has made me more conscious of its own life/ beauty it has despite being small or “not popular” it may be. So, it makes me realize that there’s more to Singapore that I have yet to explore than what I know.

With the ZINE, I have gone for an art direction I have not been familiar with but adding things that are my strengths like adding “calligraphy” and “illustrations” made it more comfortable to work with other than the layouts and art direction but the scrapbook vibe was something I was going for and I’m glad it was communicated well.

This was a really wonderful semester and I’m able to learn a lot from my classmates with their strengths in design and also a variety of concepts that help to inspire me for creative concepts. Also, the I’ve learnt a lot about InDesign and how it’ll help when it comes to making future spreads that would me in relevant or self created projects in the future 🙂

Thank you Joy for helping me have a different perspective into my work and giving suggestions into improving the idea I wanted to communicate. It helped the learning experience for 2D very enjoyable and also for the classmates that give constructive feedback that helped into improving in the project.

It was a really good semester