Katie Zhou

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Not to be biased, but this has been my favourite subject this semester. 

Beginning with project 1, I thought in a way I’ve never before about using materials, and how they can be just as strong as words at expressing a message. The delicate nature of my poster materials challenged me to problem solve by changing my methods of creation.

Making my first ever zine was quite a journey. While I felt like it consumed my life, it taught me an abundance about patience, and that continuous refining is key. Working in a style contrary to my own was extremely valuable in forcing me to approach design with a new lens. It was easy to feel mentally taxed by the project, and I found that looking at existing designs helped inspire me.

Finally, Tumblr. I have come to genuinely enjoy writing up weekly updates here. It has been useful to document my learning and experiences that have helped me progress as a designer. Seeing other talented student’s posts has been motivating with being inspired and knowing that we are all going through the same challenges.

To Bailey, Andy and Karen - a big thank you for everything you’ve done!

Finished Zine!!

I can’t believe I actually managed to finish! This zine, though fun, literally has consumed my life for the past few weeks, always at the back of my head. This has definitely been the most time I’ve spent on an assignment and it was the best feeling finally getting to vacuum all the tiny bits of paper on my floor and clear away my magazines haha.

There’s quite a bit I’ve changed since last time I uploaded. After receiving feedback from Bailey that my text was quite un-Dada, looking more like a magazine, I spiced it up by using random (and some ugly) alternating typefaces for each paragraph, to make them look as if they were different bits of text cut from a newspaper, a method used by many Dadaists. I also highlighted/underlined/circled important words with my primary colour scheme, giving the words more personality.

I decided to stick to a red, cursive type for my interview questions to give it more contrast from the rest of the pages with its elegant appearance, and enlarged my question numbers to give them more hierarchy.

Making the rest of my zine pages was challenging. Having to adhere to the nonsensical/humorous/weird/chaotic aesthetic of Dada, as well as relating my collages to my questions, as well as creating layouts that still had some structure and thoughtful design choices, was a lot to juggle. I had to think about each element of my designs extremely carefully. After a while, I started to stray from Dada and forgot to fully emulate its style, instead kind of just making collages with no style. I also started to lose creativity and found it hard to come up with ideas from my magazines. There were times where I spent hours doing things that would usually take 15 minutes. With all these slumps, I found that detaching myself from the zine and looking at other existing designs, whether that be Dada art, general designs, or zine designs, proved to be really beneficial in re-inspiring me with new ideas and a fresh perspective. Taking a break away from the zine and coming back to it another a day was also useful.

After learning all about the importance of colour in my colour & info class, I decided to stick to primary colours. Limiting my colour palette was a really good choice, where my pages altogether have a sense of harmony. As my pages have quite a lot going on, limiting my colours helped make them more digestible to view. It was however quite hard having to find specific things to collage with the added limitation of colour. Most of the time I overcame this by looking deep into my magazines, but other times I physically coloured in objects, like the red shoe on question two, or added in coloured paper, like the windows on the second last page.

Once I had all my draft pages ready, I spent yesterday sticking everything permanently down and fixing things I was wanting to change to the pages, such as rearranging layouts, adding more hand drawn aspects, changing my interviewer typeface, using the same yellow coloured paper etc. It was much easier to refine and improve my pages when I already had their general appearances figured out, where I found it a lot harder to start my pages from nothing, as more ideation was required.

Text Manipulation Workshop Activity

In class today we did a quick workshop activity that I found extremely useful; its aim was to focus on interesting ways to design layouts which will help us when making our zines . We were given a document with a photo and text and had to spend five minutes rearranging it to focus on the image. This five minute exercise was then done with the prompts of focusing on text, and distorting the layout.

I definitely could have expanded on my third experiment of the distortion, as I didn’t really distort or warp the design, more just arranged it in an unconventional manner. 

The fact that we had such a strict and short time limit was really effective for me to play around with designs without any judgement, where I couldn’t be a perfectionist. This was better for getting out ideas in quick bursts. Such a short workshop like this really has helped me think about new ways I can approach the zine, and has opened my eyes to the power layouts can have in evoking different aesthetics.

It was also interesting seeing my classmates’ different approaches to each of the prompts, really showcasing the unlimited nature of design.

WIP Draft Zine Pages

Boy have I underestimated the time and effort that goes into making a zine. Even though the four pages I’ve managed to do so far look quite simple with sole collaging and text, they have been challenging to do. This is because it has been hard finding a balance between not being a perfectionist & trying to keep that rough and quick aesthetic of a zine, and the need to make sure my designs are reflecting the rebellious, random and playful aesthetic of the Dada movement. Having constraints on the zine due to the brief has meant I have had to rearrange layouts again and again and restart pages. 

What I have decided to do is to attach my collages and text onto the page with blu tack, as I found that even if I thought a page was all done, later I would likely rearrange it again. This has given me more flexibility that would usually be offered if I were to do it digitally. 

I have made some changes to my cover design from my last post, as I received feedback from my teacher that it wasn’t fully reflective of Dada with its softer aesthetic, and that I should try position it to appear more rebellious and limit pushing.

I’m planning to stick my designs onto new fresh pages a few days before submission as the final zine, as this will also allow me to make some refinements. 

Some refinements I’ve already got in mind are:

Front cover:

Changing the title type to look more unconventional, some letters could side at 90 degrees, each letter typeface could be different

Changing the underlined colour on the text behind the title to either be blue or red, as over time I have established a primary coloured palette to the zine which the orange doesn’t adhere to

Page 1:

Changing the interview question typeface to be like the cursive one on page 4, as I found that having a stylistic contrast between the interviewer voice and interviewee voice was more effective in separating them

Changing the outline around the man to be with markers as that will look more neat. Perhaps I could changing it to zigzagging lines to make the composition more playful

Beginning my zine for the “Ask Me Anything” assignment proved to be harder than expected. As I planned to predominantly use the technique of collaging to create my designs as it relates to the Dada and zine aesthetic, I couldn’t fully plan out my cover design like I usually would, as the collaging was to be spontaneous and random. 

However, I did roughly draw out how I could arrange my title in combination with the collage. I did not intend to post it onto here hence the messiness and lack of care, but I thought it may be good to show my development.

This meant I could cancel out certain layouts that weren’t as effective, which was useful due to the analog hand-made nature of my zine, meaning that I would not be able to play around with layout as easily compared to if it were in a digital form. 

I begun by flipping through some old Frankie magazines I had and cutting out images that I was attracted to. From this, I chose a select few of my images and collaged them onto my page. Eventually, I ended up being happy with my composition in the first photograph included, as the legs created effective contrast and balance due to its large size. The use of flat shapes added a more playful look. 

Once I established my first layout, I found that it did not leave much space for me to add in my title. Therefore I moved my collage further downwards on the page. From my planning, I trialled two types of my generated titles with greylead, and chose to create a typeface with the combination of the two on my final cover. I chose to draw my own type rather than digitally implement it as it gave a more personal and raw look with the imperfect structures.

Adding the border composed of “dadadadada etc.” made the design look more complete, but I’m still not fully satisfied with the composition. I think that more could be added perhaps to the top half of the page, and I will experiment with it more. 

Overall, I found this collage style quite challenging, as I am usually one to precisely plan out all my elements and keep everything neat and orderly. The reliance on chance when collaging definitely took me out of my comfort zone. I needed to keep reminding myself to take a more relaxed approach and to not think too much about it looking perfect. I also found it hard to create it all by hand as it was harder to play with different compositions.

In class we touched on the technique of détournement, which was an artistic practice made by the Situationists. This was basically where they transformed artworks by creatively disfiguring them, to create a new meaning that derived from the original intention of the artwork. After looking at a couple examples of Internationale Situationniste posters, later on our class had a small workshop activity of creating our own collages using magazines, keeping in mind the way we could implement détournement.

After looking around my house for any magazines we had lying around, I ended up only being able to find my mum’s old Coles and Woolworth magazines which she had kept for their recipes but never really ended up using.

I wasn’t too confident with how I could make an effective collage with magazines that only really had images of food. But after thinking about how I could use detourement in an interesting way, I thought about using the food imagery as a vehicle to express the meat industry in an unappealing, inhumane way; a satirical protest against the consumption of meat. Alas, this is what I came up with.

In terms of the visual appearance, I am not the biggest fan as the layout could definitely be improved and the images are not technically very ‘aesthetic’. However, I am happy with the messages I was able to convey. 

The use of celebratory text such as “simply divine”, “delicious” and “everyday indulgence” is used ironically to mock the imagery, changing its original intention of applauding the food recipes. I collaged together the image of a plate with the image of a happy and very much alive lizard, to reveal that the food on our plates are often animals with personalities and lives of their own, hence confronting viewers with such an uncomfortable image. Furthermore, the dog eating the human head seems very weird and crazy, but it is similar in the way humans eat meat, just from an opposite perspective. The image of the pregnant women’s belly, originally from a random pregnancy advertisement, is contrarily used as a reference to people’s stomach’s filled to the brim with meat, with the lizard on the centre of her belly. Rather than the original intention of the heartwarming pregnancy advert, détournement is used to convert the image to ooze of a sickening and repulsive feeling. The repeated words of “chicken” stuck on the man’s face portrays how people’s vision of food has been ‘blinded’; not seeing rationally. It is also a pun labelling people as “chicken”, cowardly for not facing the truth of their food. Lastly, the images of the ham and prawn were deliberately chosen for their unappealing appearances, as I didn’t want the meat to look appetising. 

Part of this week’s class delved into Bailey talking about collage artists from different time periods, and how each of them had their own unique styles. One artist that stuck with me in particular was Wangechi Mutu, who still currently undergoes artistic practices. Upon further research, Mutu was born in Kenya and is based in New York, and draws on her experience as an African woman and migrant in her pieces, where they often explore the themes of alienation, race and female representation.

“Females carry the marks, language and nuances of their culture more than the male. Anything that is desired or despised is always placed on the female body” Wangechi Mutu

What I was intrigued by was how Mutu used and appropriated mixed media from various sources in a way that made them look like her own original work, rather than random pieces stuck together into one piece if that makes sense. Her technique of layering interesting textures together in an organic and smooth means allows the different elements to complement and combine together extremely well. I like how she uses small pieces to cooperate together to create a larger image, like all the textures used together in the first image to create an abstract portrait of a woman. The intricate textures with the strange imagery produces quite a surrealist appearance that I am very fond of.

It could be worth exploring ways I could collage together images in a way that makes them all fit together well to create a bigger picture.

Every few times a year when the Finders Keepers design market in the Royal Exhibition Building is hosted, I am always there no matter what, frothing over all the amazing designs, transported to a different world where I want to buy everything there but deep down know I can’t afford any of it. Who knew that even a spoon could be the most aesthetic object (too bad it’s $40). I am continuously filled with such a surge of inspiration and awe whenever I go to the market, with so many talented designers there. Hopefully it will be able to reopen soon!

One designer I met in particular that I really admire is Laura Blythman. 

"My work is a playful and colourful collection of dreamt and imagined landscapes, flora, fauna and magical places” - Laura Blythman

Even from a distance I was already intrigued with her work with their vibrant colour palettes. What I find the most interesting about her pieces is her technique of collage. I remember sometime last year asking her how exactly she created her pieces, and she said (if I remember correctly) that she would paint big sheets of paper, cut them out, and then sell her collages in a digital form. Her technique of layering is extremely effective in creating subtle depth and creates a perfectly imperfect raw look. The hand painted nature of the paper also creates an interesting texture.

Her style relates quite well to the collaged style of my zine I am planning to go for. I was also thinking about creating my zine by hand and then scanning it through similar to her works. I think that layering different materials will work very well and I will be interested to experiment with cutting out more intricate pieces of paper like Laura’s, and trialling media like paint to bring out that hand-made personal aesthetic.