Zine

In this project, we design a printed document, a zine, that we can showcase almost anything we want to, from past works to photography. For me, I chose to display some of my preferred works, ranging from digital works done in 2D modules, to painting done for Foundation Drawing, and even works done before ADM life started.

Initially, my idea was to come up with something like a catalog for a gallery, something clean and classy and minimalist. I also considered to make the entire zine in monochrome, showcasing only my works done in black and white, to further enhance the idea of minimalist and classy. I went to check out several designs, in particular from Apple and Samsung, two big technological giants well known to have been producing classy and sleek gadgets like the Apple iPhone, iPad, or the Samsung Galaxy series.

The Apple website
The Apple website
The Samsung website
The Samsung website

I found out that both Apple and Samsung made their website very classy in similar ways. First, it was the plain white background with very simplistic font, that makes the entire composition very clean and sharp. Next, the subjects – the gadgets and phones, were very precisely trimmed and placed in place with sufficient empty space, to make the subject stand out and have enough empty space to accentuate their elegance and class. However, this point might not be applicable to my design as my subjects were not 3D objects, and tend to have a background, making such cropping inapplicable. Nonetheless, this was a good start in understanding how to compose my “clean” and “classy” zine.

I also researched on the websites of the National Design Centre, and National Museum of Singapore, since I wanted my zine to look like a catalog for a gallery or exhibition, thus this two might be a good platform that is more relevant to my design.

The National Design Centre website
The National Design Centre website
The National Museum of Singapore website
The National Museum of Singapore website

SImilar to Apple and Samsung, they had very plain and light coloured background, which looks clean and classy. Both website also uses very plain fonts, with very neat and orderly arrangement of their elements. I noticed that the logos of this two websites were slightly more unique, with the logo of the National Design Centre incorporating words into part of the logo, and the asymmetrical arrangement of NMS for the National Museum. I thought through how I could incorporate English into Chinese strokes for my cover page, but ultimately giving up the idea to keep things very minimalist. I also decided to use asymmetrical arrangement in some of my layout, similar to the National Museum logo and also in line with a design principle, which talks about repetition and something out of the norm to draw attention.

While shopping, I chanced upon another idea for my zine, after seeing how MUJI, a japanese shop actually has a very calm and “zen” feeling to it. This was another direction I could go for! With shopping physically there and going online to their website, I found out I like their design quite a lot.

The MUJI shop
The MUJI shop
The MUJI website
The MUJI website

MUJI typically uses 2 colours in their entire theme – a dark red, and a light brown. These colours worked well together to give a warm, cosy and comfortable feeling, yet not compromising on its elegance and class. I also like how they use a single Chinese / Japanese word to classify and label their products. I felt that this could be a possible way to classify my works. Slowly, I decided to move my design towards a “MUJI” feel, a slightly more Japanese, cosy and comfortable design, tied in with the classy and spacious feeling of Apple and Samsung.

With these in mind, I started looking through my past works and sieved out some of the better ones that I would like to showcase in my zine. These included 2D projects since semester one like Lines, Rhymes, Ego, Point of View, and also drawings and paintings in both wet and dry mediums, from my portfolio and Foundation Drawing module.

Here is how my zine looks like, as a finalised printout, in page order (borders are only here to define the area printed due to white background):
Page 1Page 2-3Page 4-5Page 6-7Page 8I made use of the dark red and light brown colour combination as a main theme for my zine, giving a warm and comfortable tone due to their warm nature. I then used the “one chinese word” element from MUJI, which in my case, i chose to find them in Japanese. I translated the words I wanted into Japanese on google translate, and tried to use those that could be in Chinese characters, particularly, traditional Chinese characters. The existence of these words in both Japanese and traditional Chinese seemed like a good match to me, as it ties in well with the Japanese style I wanted, and also understandable in Chinese to most locals. As such, I categorised my pages according to a defining type they belong to, namely “composition”, “sketch” and “colour”, which translates to 结() or ()造, ()画, and 色(). I then named the entire zine as 设计, or Sekkei in Japanese, meaning design.

On the cover page, the title was along one-third of the layout, while the “Lines” strips were started at the two-third in response to the rule of thirds. The word “design” and the strips were also slightly misplaced left / right to eliminate symmetry. I also added my two main colours into the Chinese words which had similar strokes on one side. The shadows of the strips were also in the same colour, and given that order to not have symmetry as well.

On the second page onwards, the dark red was used as the titles to the works, as it was more eye-catching, while the light brown subtly tells of what medium the work was done in. On the right hand side of every spread, there would be a dark red tab to tell of the category of the works, similar to the one-character design of MUJI. The second page shows the “Rhymes” composition being cropped out and taking a large portion of the page, similar to the design idea of Apple and Samsung.

On the third page, the “Ego” composition was arranged in a asymmetrical way similar to the logo of the National Museum, and the shapes were all round. This gives repetition and something out of the norm based on arrangement and size. The arrangement and size different also brings in something of interest to catch the audience’s attention, and provides more movement in the layout.

On page four and five, the two sketches merges to form “one” person, which I felt was an interesting way to display these two different but similarly styled sketches, especially when these two superheroes are going to face-off in an upcoming movie, Captain America – Civil War. There was also an emphasis on white spaces around them, with entirely nothing else apart from the caption, to bring full attention to the work done.

On page six, the hexagons work together with little gaps in between to show a coherent composition like a bee hive. then, one piece is removed from the composition to have an interesting point, and I felt that the area was just nice to insert the captions, giving the whole page a clean and neat arrangement without being too boring.

On page seven, the two paintings are misaligned such that the top painting seems to hang over the bottom one, having a cantilevered position gives it movement to make the composition interesting.

The back cover shows the extension of the strips from the front cover, as well as details about myself, to give more information and context of what the works are about and who the artist is. Social contacts are also provided so that interested audience could view more works and even contact the artist for queries or request for works.

With this, the zine is completed! I personally found it quite interesting to carry out this project, to look through all the works I have done, bringing back all the good (and bad) memories as well as reflecting back to see progress and improvements, and changes in style over time. It was also interesting to try to understand how to make the layout interesting and make everything aesthetically pleasing, to both the audience and myself.

 

 

LINES – The First Assignment (Final Presentation)

This is the final draft to be submitted for critique. Most of my strips were done using marker and pen, simply drawing what I want to convey in the most simplistic monochrome way. This is with the exception of “Bizarre” and “Spontaneous” which included the use of Chinese ink, “Exhausted” which uses cotton twines and “Fragile” which includes burning my paper.

The final product!
The final product!

“Bizarre” was first done by drawing random hand prints of different sizes and orientations across the strip, followed by drawing the larger splatters to give it a more dramatic effect, then lastly completed by sprinkling Chinese ink across the entire strip using a hard bristle brush. It gives an overall effect of a crime scene, bloody and mysterious feel which goes in line with its grotesque characteristics.

"Bizarre"
“Bizarre”
Touching up the hand prints with a marker
Touching up the hand prints with a marker

“Exhausted” was done by using cotton twines. As cotton twines were not thick enough to be prominent, I took three cotton twines and braided them, then stick the two ends onto a strip of black paper to make it stand out. after which, I cut the middle section and untwined the individual cotton strands, before sticking everything down onto the paper. This is to represent reaching a limit, a breaking point, which I feel is what exhausted really means.

"Exhausted"
“Exhausted”
Cutting my "breaking point"
Cutting my “breaking point”
Securing the twine with UHU glue!
Securing the twine with UHU glue!

“Fragile” was done by first drawing crack lines across a piece of paper, then tearing it up into small pieces, then burning the edges to give a brownish edge and an outline when the pieces are stuck on top of one another. It gives me the impression of fragility as it shows like it is easily breakable or brittle using the crack lines and torn pieces, and how it is burnt gives a vintage and fragile feel like it will be destroyed at any time if not careful.

"Fragile"
“Fragile”
Burning with a windproof lighter makes it easier to control the flame burning only the edges.
Burning with a windproof lighter makes it easier to control the flame burning only the edges.

Last but not least, the assignment was eventually completed, and ended off with a presentation to the class, showing the concept of doing the various strips and sharing the methods of doing it.

The assignment ended with a presentation to the class
The assignment ended with a presentation to the class

 

LINES – The First Assignment Process

Basically this is the first assignment for Foundation 2D. When I first heard about representing the various words using lines, I was rather taken aback and have no idea how to do it at all. Slowly as time passed and looking at various examples, it slowly got slightly more comprehensible and made a bit of sense to me.

 

The first thing that came to my mind, was to find out what exactly each word means in general, and what it actually means to be, be it the same or not. So first of all, I went online to look for the definition and some synonyms of the given words to better understand them, and compiling them all into one document.

Compiling relevant definitions
Compiling relevant definitions

After which, I started doodling whatever came to mind into my sketchbook lightly, in order of whatever came to mind first.

Doodling whatever comes to mind
Doodling whatever comes to mind

This was followed by the more formal first draft onto strips printed on a A3 paper given to us. Took quite a while to have everything done onto it, but felt that it was way better than the first doodling, although there was still a lot of room for improvement, especially after consulting Shirley about it.

First draft on A3 printed strips
First draft on A3 printed strips

Here is how my presented 3 initially looked like, where “Exhausted” and “Bizarre” looks different, while I kept the idea for “Fragile”.

First version of my presented three strips.
First version of my presented three strips.

“Bizarre” shows a lot of splatters and a few hand prints, which symbolized blood to me which depicted the “grotesque” nature.

“Exhausted” shows human figures hanging lifelessly from ropes, depicting how society and survival requires us to do things that we might not want to, causing us to be worn out and tired.

“Fragile” would be done with torn up paper with burnt edges and showing crack lines drawn, showing all natures of fragility that comes to me.

After which, I made changes and adjustments to the first draft and came up with the second draft for Shirley to vet through, before completing my final project. Various strips that I felt was not bad or actually good for me were kept but repeated to make sure I got them right. Shirley advised how various strips could be switched around, which I agreed and took into consideration, and also suggestions for improvement.

Second draft on A3 printed strips.
Second draft on A3 printed strips.
Second version of the presented three strips.
Second version of the presented three strips.

“Bizarre” now shows more hand prints and less splatters, which I felt was better at bringing out the grotesque feature. Nonetheless, Shirley advised me that the first draft of this was better as it is slightly more messy and makes everything have a bizarre “feel”.

“Exhausted” was not represented by a horizontal rope which snaps in the middle of the strip which was an improvement suggested by Shirley after seeing my human figures hanging around. She also reminded me that if I could replicate this using another medium, I had to make sure it is prominent enough, preferably covering at least a third of the space given.

Finally, it is the final draft to be submitted for critique. Most of my strips were done using marker and pen, simply drawing what I want to convey in the most simplistic monochrome way. This is with the exception of “Bizarre” and “Spontaneous” which included the use of Chinese ink, “Exhausted” which uses cotton twines and “Fragile” which includes burning my paper.

The final product!
The final product!

“Bizarre” was first done by drawing random hand prints of different sizes and orientations across the strip, followed by drawing the larger splatters to give it a more dramatic effect, then lastly completed by sprinkling Chinese ink across the entire strip using a hard bristle brush. It gives an overall effect of a crime scene, bloody and mysterious feel which goes in line with its grotesque characteristics.

"Bizarre"
“Bizarre”
Touching up the hand prints with a marker
Touching up the hand prints with a marker

“Exhausted” was done by using cotton twines. As cotton twines were not thick enough to be prominent, I took three cotton twines and braided them, then stick the two ends onto a strip of black paper to make it stand out. after which, I cut the middle section and untwined the individual cotton strands, before sticking everything down onto the paper. This is to represent reaching a limit, a breaking point, which I feel is what exhausted really means.

"Exhausted"
“Exhausted”
Cutting my "breaking point"
Cutting my “breaking point”
Securing the twine with UHU glue!
Securing the twine with UHU glue!

“Fragile” was done by first drawing crack lines across a piece of paper, then tearing it up into small pieces, then burning the edges to give a brownish edge and an outline when the pieces are stuck on top of one another. It gives me the impression of fragility as it shows like it is easily breakable or brittle using the crack lines and torn pieces, and how it is burnt gives a vintage and fragile feel like it will be destroyed at any time if not careful.

"Fragile"
“Fragile”
Burning with a windproof lighter makes it easier to control the flame burning only the edges.
Burning with a windproof lighter makes it easier to control the flame burning only the edges.

Last but not least, the assignment was eventually completed, and ended off with a presentation to the class, showing the concept of doing the various strips and sharing the methods of doing it.

The assignment ended with a presentation to the class
The assignment ended with a presentation to the class