2DII – Zine Process + Final

i had a few inspirations in mind for my zine. i wanted to design my zine learning towards the experimental side, rather than a straight forward photo + interview one.

here are a few inspirations i had in mind –

taking these inspirations into consideration, i came up a few layouts variations –

i consulted mimi and she told me to try out with the real content out because i didnt have anything out yet so it was hard to comment on.

and so i came up with my first layout mock up –


however, mimi wasnt a fan of my layout because she mentioned that my images weren’t deserving the little attention as how they should be as they were well taken. she also didnt like the unnecessary geometric patterns and elements that i was adding into my zine as they have no purpose.

mimi gave me a few helpful and insightful tips that i should work on. she told me to focus on the people, and my zine should be one that people would want to keep looking at the images. my zine should be humanistic, and story orientated. she told me to look at magazines such as TIME.

i researched on those magazines and here are some insightful

i understood what she was referring to and i realized i was lacking in some portraiture, so i went back to beauty world for another time to take their portraits.

unfortunately Lilian from Sew Easi wasnt comfortable to have her picture taken, so i could only use the previous photo i had of her back to substitute as her portraiture 🙁

getting a layout was actually quite difficult mainly because of the lack of pages!! as i had 3 craftsmen to showcase, it meant that i only have 1 spread for 1 craftsman. the tough part was squeezing the images into one spread, and have a write up with it too. i had struggles on the arrangement because i didnt want to make my zine as just a photo journal, but more of it being content related.

i wanted to have a full page of their portraiture, however that leaves me just 1 page of images + text. that. was. a. challenge.

i didnt know where to place my write up because there was just too much going on one one page. i wanted to experiment with the overlaying of write up on my images to make it look “experimental”, but that’s not a way to do graphic design because aesthetics shouldn’t be the main reason to design. design must make sense, then comes aesthetics.

after much painful processes of rearranging in the middle of nights, i finally settled on a layout –

however there are some elements that i felt should be worked on –

  1. the placement of the quote on the first page. it was hard to read because of the colour of the text and background, and the arrangement of it was wrong. it didnt make sense. my eye doesnt lead me to the quote.
  2.  the title of the place. “lucky star hair dressing saloon” was at the wrong place because it makes people have the impression that the write up starts from the right column, but it is not.

i tweaked them again and here is my final layout! –

front and back cover
first spread
middle spread
last spread

i preferred the way it looks now because the images dont look too stagnant and systematic. they are overlaid and i feel that way they look more organic, but also pleasant to the eyes.

aaaand thats a wrap for 2D! i really had fun the projects for this semester because they were more visual communication related. i really enjoyed the process of doing site research because it opened my eyes and created a whole new perspective of bukit timah as a whole. i am also thankful that because of this project, i managed to find out about these artisans, and their stories be it their life, their business, or their philosophy on things in general. i am also glad i had the opportunity to land myself photography project as well because it has always been my passion to document and photograph artisans and their craft.

designing publications has been my favourite because i find the excitement in the challenge on how placements of elements could affect the readability and the feeling. this project has definitely provided me the experience and trained me well.

and im really glad that mimi brings her professional industry background into class, as telling us how the graphic / advertising industry works in class. i believe that is important and essential for us, especially for budding designers.

thank you mimi for your guidance for this sem! i have definitely learned quite a bit!

 

before i end off, here are images that didnt make it into the zine. enjoy!

 

 

Author: Natalie Cheng

only human, just like you.

One thought on “2DII – Zine Process + Final”

  1. Thank you Natalie! I love how your zine turned out. Very heartfelt. All the best to you! It’s been a pleasure to have had you as my student.

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