1997
Brief: Design and produce a "fanzine" all about yourself.
A fanzine is a non professional publication designed and produced by fans of a particular cultural subject, for themselves and others who share the same interests. Fanzines are traditionally circulated free of charge, or for a minimal cost. Many artists, illustrators and graphic designers use the process of a fanzine to experiment and showcase their work, as its fairly easy and cost effective.
I began by visiting the De La Warr Pavilion, where an exhibition was held showcasing four well known fanzines and self publications "Schmuck," "POP," "bRIAN," and "Assembling." The exhibition offered an insight into alternative graphic design and illustration, "POP" in particular highlighted colourful and abstract pages, that experimented with composition, layout and context, which in turn grabbed my interest greatly. Walking around the gallery space, I was really inspired by the boldness of some of the fanzine pages, but also how simple and abstract a publication can be; a fanzine doesn't have to be full of text and imagery, it could be as simple as a dot on a page. Its what the artist, illustrator or designer wants to express and tell the viewer. This observation and inspiration was a feature that I took forward and experimented with in my own fanzine.
After visiting and gaining inspiration from the exhibition, I began planning and sketching out my fanzine about myself. I started by writing a list of all the things that have influenced, inspired and affected me in my life; family, friends, memories etc. From there I sketched out a map of all the pages and features that I was going to include in the publication. I wanted to incorporate some of the abstract and visually interesting imagery from the publications in the exhibition, so for each page I would experiment with different layouts, compositions, text and colours until I was happy, then once I had sketched and planned every page in my fanzine I went into Adobe Indesign and began to create it. Initially I had some challenges in terms of the size of the pages and bleed lines, but after experimenting with a few formats, I found a layout that was efficient.
Overall I am very happy with my final fanzine. I have retained some of simplicity in composition and layout that inspired me from the exhibition, but also I have experimented with colour, text and shape that in turn generates visual excitement and interest. However in my print out version I have included a fold out page, which features a game I created called Bailey Trumps, inspired by "Top Trumps" Bailey Trumps showcases my family in top trump format, and the fold out page means the reader can cut out the cards and have a game of Bailey Trumps; but unfortunately in my digital version I wasn't able to include the fold out pages. Ultimately my fanzine is a piece of me, it holds my personal interests, beliefs and theories, but also highlights whats important to me, who's affected me, and inspirations that have influenced me. Below are photos of my fanzine and a link to issuu where I have uploaded a digital version of my publication.