Category: Final Project

Final Zine: East to West

Jurong. It is just so far. The extreme west end of Singapore and the place everyone calls “Pulau NTU” because that is just how far we are away from everyone. But it is also where my uni life began.

In my opinion, this was a rather challenging project just to come out and develop a concept that I thought would capture the essence of Jurong, show my exploration and at the same time not be a commercialised zine.

I struggled quite a bit because I was not alway certain with what I wanted to do with my concepts. I kept changing and switching back and forth with the concepts because I was not very satisfied with one. However, I really did enjoy looking at artist Kate Rabbit’s work especially her collage series which incorporated everything I wanted for my zine. 

It had the flora aspect which I could incorporate from my research in Jurong, the illustrations which I could include my architecture concept (Mimi’s advice after I showed her my inspirations as she said I needed something that is representative of Jurong) and the photography which was my personal aspect.  

FINAL

Cover page

My first attempt at the cover page is seen as the featured image for this page at the top.  I quite liked it but I felt that the words was not as visible as my second attempt which is the one that I used in the end and is pictured here. I arranged the flowers in the shape of the whole Jurong as I felt it best captured the essence of my zine along with the title (I mainly featured the opposite ends of Jurong for this zine).

Introduction

This acted as a brief summary of my zine and what to look forward to. I added the scotch tape to create a scrapbook vibe, including the black highlighted “journey” part. The black highlighted part reminded me of childhood whereby my mum to have this small handheld manual name printer. It was not like the digital kind from Brothers where you can simply key in the the words you wanted to print. The one from my childhood had the alphabets and symbols in a circle and you had to rotate it till you reached the alphabet you want before pressing down the handle to emboss it. Then the whole steps repeats for the next letter and so on. It also had a typewriter font on it thus I chose a similar font for it too.

Page 3

This served as my “trail” as the places that I will talk about in chronological order. I started with the East which is the Ng Teng Fong Hospital and Chevrons then proceeded to the West which is ADM and Safti. I illustrated all the structures using the pen tool on Adobe Illustrator.

Page 4

1st entry and the flowers do have symbolism to it which I specifically chose. The Frangipanis represents death which I thought was apt for my finger as I couldn’t use it for months and till now it does not bend properly. The rest of my pages follows the same structure which is the word entry, location then flora and personal pictures. I tried adding more illustrations similar to Kate Rabbit’s style but it would look quite cluttered.

Page 5

Again, the flowers has symbolism. The orchids represents love and happiness while the hibiscus mean joy, seeing beauty and finding a reason to celebrate the simplest of joys. The reason why I did not include the flower symbolism is because it was more of a personal thing and I felt that it was not necessary for the zine. Also, the flowers here are vibrant and colourful to allude to my emotions of happiness and nervousness during the event. For the personal picture here, it was trimmed in a very messily way as based on Kate Rabbit’s work not all of her pictures were trimmed properly. It also adds to a more scrapbook vibe.

Page 6 

This personal picture was roughly cut out too for the same reason as I explained above and it created a more casual and playful mood which added to this theme of the page. Here I did explain the flower symbolism because it had a connection to my friends’ personalities.

Page 7

Similarly, I did explained the symbolism of the flowers as I wanted to clear any misunderstandings for Chrysanthemums. In some cultures, Chrysanthemums are used during funerals to represent death and purity but they also symbolise happiness as explained.

Page 8

This page was covered in grass to connect to the cover page.

Que Sera Sera

Idea 1: Makeup Artist
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This was a zoomed in version of the lashes but as you can see the “EM” created from the shadows. During the critique, most commented on the Post Its that the lashes were too thin and should have made the”EM” bolder and then I realised it was because I forgot to push up/fold the lashes and when my classmates saw it, the lashes were flat on the paper as that was how I left it for transportation. Thus, they did not see the shadow (I used my phone to shine the light as it was the harshest light so the shadow could appear more defined) until I showed it to them during the explanation.

Idea 2: Landscape Designer

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Almost everyone in class was fascinated with this concept and idea and I was really really happy about it because sticking on the moss was a very tedious process and it got onto EVERYWHERE. I really liked how it turned out as using the artificial moss, it conveyed the message effectively and it created the visual texture that I felt would have been lost if I did it on Photoshop. Although I had some comments that I should have used a lighter background which I wanted to initially and had the same dilemma at Art Friend but I do think we proper lighting it should have worked out well.

Idea 3: Beekeeper

typo-1The “E” is bigger than the “M” on the bee which most did not see but either way, I felt that the “E” already conveyed the message. Although it was a risk to take to put such a tiny “M” on the bee just because I wanted consistency in the names. I chose bees too as from my Chinese name’s research I found out my name meant cultivated and I do think that bees have a sophisticated way of communicating such as the “8 dance” where they welcome a new queen bee.

Idea 4: Mixologist

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Also from my Chinese name’s research, I discovered that one of the characters meant brilliant or glowing which I felt as though the Flaming Lamborghini conveyed this message because of the flame and the brilliantness of the stunts that the mixologists do. I added in a shaker to make the design more obvious and also took advice from my friend’s and modified the designs. I zoomed onto the upper portion of the glass and drink as I felt it had a more important role than showing the whole glass of drink. Also I changed up the colour of some parts of the flame to make the “E” more obvious.

Overall, this project was mentally and technically challenging but I was glad that I was able to showcase my designs in 4 different mediums. I think the whole journey and process was worth it in the end as I managed to create something unique and also showcased my personality and a bit of my life into it.