Oli

18 graphics student @ BCU

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These images are from an exhibit named “The Images of Power” which is focusing on the changes that the images of the rulers have undergone during the last few centuries. The images depict African kings to Spanish monarchs and politicians. The first few images which are depicting the African kings are photographed whilst the monarchs and politicians are oil painted.

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These images are works of art from the “Cartel cubano 1959-1989″ exhibition at the MuVIM in Valencia. The theme of these images is primarily propaganda but overall, they are expressing the “complex social life” after the success of the revolutionaries. The majority of colours used in these pieces are not necessarily vivid or bright but more bold and contrasting with a heavy use of blues, reds and blacks.

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Narrative and Interpretation

The theory of interpretation and narrative is an interesting one as it raises the question as to whether or not real life is the same as a painting or an image. For example, when you look at something in real life, the light bounces off that thing and hits your eyes, causing you to see it. But is this not the same with an image or a painting? Will the light not bounce off that same image or painting and hit your eyes, causing you to see it just like what would happen with a physical 3D object in front of you?

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Narrative in Fashion

Another interesting point that was raised in a lecture was about the narrative in fashion and fashion editorials. The point was that if you advertise fashion in one culture or country, it will make complete sense to the people who you are advertising to, but if you take the same advertisement and put it in a completely new culture or country, then the meaning and story of the advert will have changed completely as the new audience may have no clue what the narrative is trying to convey to them. Not only this but the location of the advert within the same culture has a massive effect on how that advert and its narrative will be received by the audience.

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Using a Map of Berlin to Navigate Birmingham

One of the theories in our lectures was about using a completely different map to navigate a certain area. The example given was using a map of Berlin to navigate Birmingham which I thought was a really interesting concept seeing as you are using a form of navigation that completely makes sense in one context but as soon as you take it from its native context and put it into a new context, you create a completely new story. For example, if you used the map of Berlin for navigating Berlin, you would get the story that is supposed to be conveyed, whereas if you use the same map to navigate somewhere else, you would end up with a very different narrative and could even possibly create a new narrative that would make sense?

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This is another version of my final zine that I made using grey paper instead. I feel as though this does not show the details of the images and especially the type quite as well as the yellow and red version does but when held, this zine has a really nice feel to it and is quite sleek. 

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This is my final zine design. I chose the colours red and yellow to represent the communist colours as I feel that this links in really well with the political theme of my zine. I am very happy with the quality of the images and the type also and I feel that it has the feel and quality of zine when held and felt. I think that I have utilised white space really well with this design as the type is positioned it quite an elegant way which almost contrasts the raw and very cut and paste/crude way the image designs have been arranged and put together. In order to keep to zine tradition and to represent the original zines, I decided to bind my zine by simply folding the pages into one another as this would have been one of the ways the first zines would have been bound. Overall, I am very pleased with the way this zine has turned out and the only thing I would change would be to fill some of the image pages a bit more as a few of them feel a little bit empty compared to others but on the whole I am pleased with the result.

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This is a prototype version of my zine that I made so that I was then able to see where each page was going to go in relation to each of the other pages. I didn't realise how much time went into making sure that each page was opposite the right one so that when they were finally placed together to make the final zine, they flowed properly. Making this prototype really helped me to make my final zine as I was then able to quickly see which pages had to go where which sped up my production time massively. Another thing that helped me to speed up my production time was by photocopying my original designs and turning them into A4 pages that I could then riso multiple pages at once. This helped me drastically save the amount of master roll that I used as well as the amount of time that I spent printing the zine.  

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These are the final pages that I have in my zine. I am very pleased with the final page, which I think is my favourite, due to the simplicity of it but the strong message that comes with it. I also really like the line it ends on which is “The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.”. I felt that this was a really strong line to finish the story on. On the whole, I am pleased with the way I have laid out my zine as I feel I have captured the Dada style well but I have also used white space to lay out the text well too. I plan to create my zine using the riso machine as I feel as though this will give it the nicest finish.

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These are my final designs and layouts that I made. I made these by finding lots of images of Russian people, farmers and workers and also pictures of Russian political figures who were represented by animals in the story such as Stalin, Lenin and Trotsky as well as Hitler and Churchill. I then found pictures of animals who were the same as the ones in the actual story, for example horses, sheep, pigs/boars, mules and goats. For the text next to each image, I photocopied the Animal Farm book and then cut out the parts that I needed to use. I used a scalpel to cut out all of the images and I then used blue-tac to attach them together so that I was then able to rearrange them if I needed to. For the title page, I used the typeface Kremlin as I felt that this represented the typefaces used on the Russian Constructivism pieces of art and I think that it works well with the style of the front page.

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These are another two examples of experiments that I made in my project. Again, I used cut out photos as well as cut out text that I found from magazines and books to create the design. I arranged theses designs on pieces of a5 paper and I then used the riso machine to print them onto paper which I had previously made pink with the riso machine. I quite like the colour combination of pink and black as I feel as though the images stand out well but still work well with the pink. I think the tone of pink is right too as it is not too vivid and it does not take your attention away from the designs. I am also more pleased with these designs too as I think that they use the space on the page well.

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These are a few more experiments that I did when I was playing around with different designs that I could use in my final designs. I used the same collage approach that I had used in my previous experiments and I feel that this design covers the page a lot better than the previous one did. There is more depth to it as well as the images are scaled to seem as though there is a foreground and a background. I tried to incorporate the Constructivism side of design into this piece by adding the red lines in the background however, although these lines do add the element of Constructivism to the designs, I feel they only make the designs look to crowded. For that reason, I think that to use a plain background would be a better idea. The first four examples (going left to right), were created on the riso machine which, for the red background, was a good idea as it gave it a nice quality however I do not think that the riso machine was the best idea for the actual designs as you cannot make out the details in the darker parts of the design. I tried simply photocopying the design onto the paper instead to see what this result would look like and I feel that it looks visually better than the riso version however its feel and texture is not as nice and finished. 

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These are a few of my initial attempts to create a collage style page for my Animal Farm zine. I used cut out photos that I found online as well as found patterns and cut out sections of text that I cut out from the book. The black and white version is my original design which I then used to create the pink versions on the riso machine. The pink piece on the left is a lot darker and more dense than the one on the right which I didn't really like as you cannot see the detail in the photos and type that well, so I changed the contrast of it so that you were able to see more of the detail. I quite like how the type is scattered around the page however, I feel that there is a bit too much white space which makes the page seem quite sparse. I also don't think that the pink represents the images well enough so I think that another, darker colour might be a better choice. On the whole however, I feel that this experiment has been successful.

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I wanted to try and focus on the cut and paste as well as the constructivism side of design. This is an early attempt I had at making a piece that had a college/cut and paste element as well as a constructivism element to it. I like the collage of the animals feet and the shapes created in the background however, I do not really like the way the type looks on it as I feel it looks quite flat and does not really represent Dada and Constructivism well. I also don't think that the typeface suits the styles I am trying to show either. I think the colour scheme also works quite well as it links in with the green of the animalism flag that is described in the Animal Farm story. 

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These are a few examples of punk zines that I found while I was researching zines and some of the original zine designs and layouts. These punk zines have been photocopied and produced in large numbers which is why photocopying is the method of choice to produce them as it is quick and cheap. I really like the grainy quality that the photocopying method gives the images and the type and I think that this is the kind of quality that I would use in my own zines. I want to try and use both photocopying and riso printing to create my zines as these will reproduce the same grainy quality. Not only this, but I also like the use of the cut out type and the hand drawn type as well as it gives the zines a raw feel and it also showcases the handmade quality of them which is another feature that I want to recreate in my own work.

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Another artist I had a look at was Jon Klassen who is a Canadian writer and illustrator of children’s books. The reason I looked at this artist was because of the minimal and sophisticated way that he lays out his type. He is very good at using white space to give an elegant way of laying out his pages and as he writes children’s books, he only uses a few sentences per page which adds to the elegant feel of the pages. I want to try and use this same approach at using white space surrounding the type to give a minimal approach to the way I will lay out my type in my zine. 

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An artist I looked at in my project was Barbara Kruger who is an American conceptual artist and collagist. I love the grainy quality of the black and white photos she uses in her work and then the contrasting red and white type boxes over the top. I created my own designs in her style in the two images below. I used two images of Joseph Stalin, one older and one younger to show progression and then I used an altered quote from the Animal Farm text and overlaid over the faces of Stalin. I added grain and blurred the edges of the type boxes slightly so that they blended into the image behind.