2D Project 3: Final (Zine)

‘TRANSIT IN VIETNAM’

This is the final product of my zine titled ‘Transit In Vietnam’. It speaks about my adventures and the modes of transport I took during my week-long backpacking trip with a bunch of close friends from Ho Chi Minh City all the way to Nha Trang in Vietnam. The zine visually narrates about the hectic traffic in Ho Chi Minh City, a train ride across different states and the journey to the white sand dunes in Mui Ne.

Transit in Vietnam (FINAL OSS)

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Click here to see the process 🙂

I incorporated the idea of each spread being a different place in Vietnam and accompanying it with minimal texts so I could let the pictures speak for themselves instead. Initially there were some printing problems and it didn’t exactly turned out as how I wanted it to be. However, I managed to recover from that mistake and work my way around it and eventually it turned out pretty decent.

Overall, I’ve really enjoyed the process of making this zine, as I sift through the various travel photos I took over the years and carefully ‘curating’ them to my zine. This photo zine was also driven by the idea of my travel photos being stagnant in my hard drive. This project has allowed me to showcase these travel photos visually and yet tell a story from start to end. I’m also thankful for the valuable feedback and ideas Joy has given me as well as learning InDesign which can potentially help me in my future projects.

2D Project 3: Conceptualisation Of Ideas

We were tasked to create an 8-page zine where we can choose to explore our past works or work an entirely new creation. After going through numerous thought processes and conceptualising, I decided to do a photobook zine where I put a bunch of photos into an 8-page zine. The central focus I am looking for in my zine is my travels in the past few years.

I went to search on various travel magazines and zines that could possibly inspire me as well as how I want the layout of my zine to be.

Here are some of my inspirations:

Cereal magazine

Kinfolk

These 2 magazines contains similar styles and I love their minimalistic approach on their photos and text. Everything looks very clean and easy to absorb and it just looks aesthetically pleasing.

Some other inspirations:

I’m inspired by how the layout of the zine can be very simple to give a clean look to the overall zine and the photos are not overwhelming to the eyes.

Initially, I started with 3 main countries that I would like to feature. Mainly, Australia, Vietnam and Indonesia. Each spread will consist of photos from the mentioned countries.

Here is some examples of the first draft.

First Draft
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After reviewing the first draft, I decided to change my focus to one country instead that features 3 main places I’ve visited in that country. For this, I wanted to include short texts about each place, giving the readers a brief context of the place that is accompanied with the photos.

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Third Draft

After going through consultation with Joy, she suggested I needed to find a unique selling point for my zine and what I am trying to tell people through this zine. She suggested that I could document my journey from one place to another place. For example, taking a train and taking a bus in different countries so the underlying concept is about commuting to different places. I then decided to incorporate my drafts and this idea together to form my final draft. I kept texts to a minimum and instead only wrote the name of the place in one of the photos.

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There was still more ideas that I needed to explore to make it work but I know roughly what I was aiming for and how the concept in my head should turn out physically. My next post will be the actual final piece of the zine.

The binding method I will be going for will be the pamphlet stitch binding and the type of paper I’m using will be between 200-250gsm matte paper.

Pamphlet Stitch Binding