Draft 1

Initially, my secondary research about Yishun revealed contrasting information: It is very eco-centric, as well as dementia friendly BUT it is also infamous for eccentric crimes and cat murders. And then there’s the useless bicycle structure that shoots water and underwhelming hot springs.

I didn’t know what to do about so I did everything, although I organised them into 3 categories: The Good, The Bad & The Weird.

Draft 2

Then, I decided to focus on the cat murders, but I really really did not want to put Yishun in a bad light because the responses to them by the local community is heartwarming.

Hence, I resolved to make a zine for the cats instead, including traces of efforts by the community here and there.

I created the draft in photoshop.

 

Draft 3

Then, through the InDesign course and several presentaions, I recognised the importance of asymmetry and texture. Hence, while transferring graphics over to InDesign, I added textures to the silhouettes & map and changed the balanced format of the Accomodations.

Upon consultation, I’ve learnt several problems which I will address in my next draft:

• Front and back page have plain backgrounds
• The style between pages differ too much
• Last spread have too many elements

Draft 4

• Added texture of Yishun signature twisted house playground as background, fitting text and name into the window.
• Cat has a more playful posture

• Change fonts to similar type for more cohesion
• Added swirly texture to increase the dynamism of the houses
• A darker background on the right 1/3 of the spread(Rule of thirds) to separate the topics

• Removed distracting wood and plate background
• Increased size of map
• Standardised font and icon size for a neater look

• Title font changed to the same as previous page to reduce style difference
• Reduced number of elements
• Circular background with size hierarchy to guide the eyes and separate them cleanly

• Replicated texture of house from front page
• Added social media link
• Added visually intriguing cat silhouette to enforce the cat focus of zine

Draft 5

Finishing touches!

• Used complementary colours Blue and Yellow for this spread

 

• Made used of the idea of circular background to add texture
• Used analogous colours of the warm spectrum to incite hunger
• Fixed the visible white background of the icons

• To avoid repetition of previous circular background, used the same brush texture as the first spread for background instead
• Used the  primary colours scheme

• Isolated the cat silhouette from window so they would not look joined when printed with colour similarities

 

Overall Learning Points

• How to use InDesign
• Why InDesign is better than Photoshop in terms of resolution resizing
• Odd number columns will aid in neater presentation
• Asymmetrical designs and texture add dynamism
• The use of circular/colour blocked background to separate information
• The use of visual hierarchy to guide the eye
• Standardising of fonts to improve cohesion of the entire zine
• Stick to a colour scheme for a stylistic design