autobiographical token: revised

after completing our token, we were given critique and comments on how we could improve our designs and concepts.

general comments:

This piece is engaging but, at the same time, it is also too much a fine art response. Focus on:

Craftsmanship (i.e., refine cutting, pasting, and assembly)

Simplifying (i.e., streamline/condense/reduce to essentials)

Typography (i.e., hierarchy, grid, contrast of precise layout and handwriting)

The big questions being: Where is the typesetting and typography? In what ways can your artifact be an object of and by design?

Format could be less cumbersome. You can use photography, lighting, and angled shots to your advantage as you consider other formats.

I decided I still wanted to stick to my original concept, but rework my design into something stronger. I felt I had a strong idea but that my design choices could've had more thought behind them. I felt my metaphor of growth with the garden in the box could still be used in my project as i still wanted to focus on my personal growth and struggles. I mainly wanted to focus on recreating my collage with more intention and meaning behind it. I wanted to communicate my thoughts and struggles in a more structured way.

my original concept:

I wanted my project to center around the idea of personal growth and change. I wanted to highlight the struggles of tough experiences, anxieties, and my ability to overcome them. I feet that my experiences in the last year made me who I am today and helped me learn a lot about myself. I feel that each experience you face and overcome changes you forever, you are constantly growing with everything you experience in life. Without these experiences and my ability to overcome them, I would not be the person I am today. Overcoming obstacles is important to me, yet I've also started to struggle with anxiety and insecurities because of them. Being big parts of my life and general concept, I wanted to include the impact they've left as well.

I wanted to compare my internal growth and change with a garden and butterflies. The garden would metaphorically represent healing from my experiences and my ability to grow into the person I am now.

I wanted to use imagery of butterflies throughout my piece to symbolically represent my mental changes within myself. Butterflies represent transformation and growth, so I felt using them would be a good way to help convey my ideas.

after looking over my comments, I thought about ways I could still stick to my original concept while representing it better visually. I focused on how my design was very much a fine art response and began to research examples of collage in graphic design. I wanted to simplify my existing collage by putting more thought into my compositional choices and looking at my work from a designer's perspective. I also wanted my typography to interact with my design rather than sit on top of it.

In my research, I became influenced by the work of Wolfgang Weignart, Karel Martens, and Fred Free. Free's collages were especially interesting to me as it provided a good example for the collage effect I wanted with the compositional skills I was searching to reference. Swiss style topography and design also caught my attention as well as the digital and analogue collage work of April Greiman. I collected some visual research based on the direction I was leading towards along with some imagery I gathered when creating my original token.

As for my original collage, I feel like it lacked structure and narrative when representing my concept. While yes, it represented myself visually, the poetry I added seemed to be vague and lacked the direction I was looking for. My goal was to recreate a design that reflected my concept both through strong imagery and text while still reflecting who I am. For my collage, I originally created a long, continuous graphic that rolled up into my box. I still liked the idea of a continuous graphic so I thought about using that when creating a new collage but kept in mind that I wanted the structure of separate pages that I was lacking. I thought about creating an eight page zine, but before that I did some research on their history as well as visual research.

through research, I found that zines were a way for marginalized people to express their art, ideas, politics, and activism through small independent publishings of self created magazines. Zines provided a way for people to connect with one another, they gave a voice for those who couldn't have one in the mainstream publishing world. Many of them included art, politics, culture, and activism all into one publication, helping shape zine culture in the 80s as well as the feminist movement of the time. Ultimately, zines were a way for people to express themselves and let their art and opinions be heard in a publishing world that made it difficult.

I chose to continue with formatting my idea into a zine because of its historical background. Being used to express one's art, opinions, and feelings in a publishing world where it was only accessible to certain people, I felt this resonated with my idea of talking about my anxieties and struggles and being able to express them freely. In general, I felt very limited in expressing myself, only revealing it to those close to me. This reminded me up the very limited printing of zines and how they were a more small scale, less seen kind of thing. Because they were also used to connect people, my zine could represent me want to connect with those around me socially as well as in terms of my project. My zine would provide a way for someone viewing my project to understand my art, and feelings in the form of a curated booklet. Because I still wanted to use my the garden box as well as its metaphor of growth and opening up, I would place the zine inside it once finished. This would represent someone only knowing my story once i open up to them. When the box is opened, my project is revealed for them, much like how you only really know someone once they are comfortable opening up to you.

In my last collage, I used a good amount of imagery that was my own through photos I had taken on my phone. Some of my imagery was sourced online though, mainly without any specific purpose to it. I kind of just added things I thought looked nice without much thought put into them. This created a very crowded and cumbersome feel to my project that I wanted to avoid this time. Going ahead, I only used imagery I had created or photos I had taken.

Before starting, I took some notes in my sketchbook:

Because I wanted the feel of a physical collage, I printed out some images and cut and ripped them up and scanned them back in with my printer. I did this because I wanted to create the collage digitally for editing purposes yet still have the effect I was looking for. This style was also reminiscent of the zine culture I was taking inspiration from and I wanted to emulate that in my project.

imagery I gathered that I shot:

The images I gathered apply to my concept or my self in terms of who I am as a person and the ideas i wanted to communicate.

scanned imagery used in collage:

Because I wanted to create all my own imagery, I used my scanner to create something using fabric and jewelry:

the fabric's purpose was for added texture but I included my jewelry as a personal connection and to represent my self expression and identity. I thought including it was a nice personal connection I could add that would help represent myself in my project further.

After I gathered my images, I thought about whether creating a title for the cover page would be a good idea. Most zines have a title on the front of them and I wanted to follow that format when building mine. I decided to call it "The introvert's struggle and opening up to others". I felt this title covered my idea of social anxiety and the concept of opening up while still being broad enough for anything I wanted to talk about inside my project.

sketches:

I worked on my zine with each page following one after the other in a single document I sectioned off. I later individually took each page and arranged them for printing.

For my front page I included my title and created a small collage with myself on the front. I created this shape, sort of like a light shining out, coming from my chest to represent myself opening up throughout my text inside. I used a cut paper look for my text here because I wanted to emulate the look of traditional zines.

I decided that for the inner pages, I would create a two page spread. This is so i could still do a continuous graphic and so I could use the space to the most of my ability. I wanted to utilize letterforms in a more dynamic way, so I felt this method would help me do so. I wanted to avoid crowding of text because of how small my pages would be when printed and because I wanted to avoid the cluttered look that was occurring in my last design.

As for the poetry I created, I still used some of it that I felt could work for my narrative. I wrote some more phrases and lines that I felt solidified my ideas. These first two pages talk about struggling to socialize with others and questioning my place in the lives of those around me. I decided each two page spread would talk about something different I struggled with.

this spread talks about the change that comes as I experience new things in life, how some choices lead me to certain consequences and my thoughts on it. Again, I used some lines of text I used in my last design. I kept the arrangement of type in mind as I placed text as I didn't really use my type as part of my design last time. I took some lines and manipulated letterforms throughout the page. I still kept the cut out look with the bulk of my words. This design was common in zines so I wanted to reflect that here.

In my previous design I had butterflies represent a metaphor of the growth that came along with my experiences. I decided to still use that and included some imagery with butterflies throughout my design but in a more purposeful way. Rather than scattered about, I used a cutout here to work with the design instead of against it. I collaged with the intention of negative space as there was already a lot going on in my design.

this spread is an attempt to visualize the anxiety I feel through the treatment of type and imagery. I used type on a path to try and visually represent scattered thoughts as well as a bold jagged font for certain words. I wanted to convey unorganization while also still having some structure to it. I included an image of a tarot card as I not only read tarot but the three of swords represents emotional hurt, heartbreak, and sorrow. These feelings play a part in the anxiety I face at times. I continued with another image of butterflies and created a duotone with another image.

For the back page, I included another image of myself with butterfly wings and a small bit of text talking about my outlook on growing and changing. I wanted an actual end to this small "story" so I felt following up my questions and thoughts with a happier resolution would show the effects of the growth I was focusing on. The imagery of myself with butterfly wings physically represents the changes I've been through while the text spells that out.

finished spread:

once finished, I arranged my pages for print:

I printed out my zine and photographed it with my box: