THEORY INTO PRACTICE - A Visual Response

Researching Zines

What format would be most suitable?

What kind of colour palette should I set myself? Monochrome, two colour plus stock?

I like the idea of printing onto coloured stock and then just using one colour for the illustrations. Would this be suitable for my topic though?

I am unsure whether or not to screen print. It would be a good way to produce lots at the same time and would encourage me to think about the colour more.

After looking at all these differen't examples, I realise now that I've got to consider all sorts of things like colour palette; number of pages; what stock it will be printed on; the colour of the stock and printing methods.  I've also noticed that not all of these zines have full page illustrations - is this something I could consider or does the page look a bit too empty? I am still edging towards using a hotdog fold for the booklet/zine - since there will only be 6 pages plus the covers, I could do more than one. 

THEORY INTO PRACTICE - A Visual Response

At this point I was still really stuck in what direction my project was going in. I still didn't know what I was trying to say.

I thought about using elements of metal bands lives/background as visual material to create a pattern with, as pattern designing is something I'm quite interested in. However, this quite quickly lost appeal to me and I thought that it would end up being pretty repetitive. I knew that if I was going to create work I was proud of (one of my goals this semester), I'd have to be really interested and invested in an idea.

Out of nowhere, I had a bit of an epiphany. I hadn't thought much about this module because I felt I had so much other work to think about but as I gradually got my teeth into everything, I had more space to think about this. Previously I hadn't realised how my workload and stress levels affected the quality of my ideas and work. 

The idea is to use all the information I have gathered about the metal genre and metal heads and create some kind of zine. I re-did my mind maps so they were much more clear and to organize my ideas:

I'm surprised it took me so long to come up with this idea. Upon reflection, it seems like the logical thing to do after writing a semiotic analysis of metal album covers. I've already got most of the information I need so I'm going to translate it into a little illustrated zine. 

My initial thoughts on creating a zine:

• It needs to be short & humorous
• Contemplating using illustrator to for the line-work (similar to my Visual Language piece)
• I need to look at other illustrators work similar to this idea - what kind of layout should I use? Should I use a limited colour palette? What kind of drawing style is appropriate? 
• How will I physically make it? I am currently thinking a hotdog book will be suitable

Although I haven't made much of a visual progression so far, I think in terms of ideas I've finally got something solid to work with and have more confidence about the upcoming pecha kucha presentation.