HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES
SOCIAL CAUSE ZINE
Our final project in Historical Perspectives was to design and print a two-color risograph zine. Our topic was any social cause, topic, or talking point of our choosing, which we needed to explore with a variety of text and image uses.
I chose to delve into the topic of nuclear anxiety, particularly targeted towards members of the younger generations who had not lived or been involved in such geopolitical tensions yet in their lives. The choice in topic was inspired by a particularly traumatizing paranoid episode I had experienced in October 2022 in response to Vladimir Putin's nuclear sabre-rattling that had been widely discussed across U.S. news sites. The isolation and feelings of hopelessness that accompany such a unique cause for panic can be horrifying to experience, especially alone, and if I could extend a sympathetic and helpful hand towards even one person struggling, I would feel accomplished.
Our final deliverable was a set of 30 risograph printed two-color zines, trimmed and folded, that were to be handed out during our exhibition, A Collage of Voices, during the December Artwalk on Lomax Street.
PROCESS
My workflow for this project began with a rough layout sketch of my zine, brainstorming what visual and written techniques I could employ to convey the set of messages I was most interested in including. When creating a zine, it's helpful for me not just to imagine individual pages, but the way different spreads relate to each other and the 'story' flow of the entire zine.
The zine layout we were using (the 11x17 Magic Zine) dictates that half of the pages in the flat are rotated 180 degrees in order to be right side up once folded. Below are pages 3-6 rotated for easier digital viewing.
Despite the scary title, I was mostly focused on providing gentle Cognitive Behavioral adjustments and reassurances that are a big part of my work with my therapist. Many young adults can't afford therapy, aren't in a position to be able to attend therapy, or are otherwise discouraged from attending because of a mental or cultural block. By taking a clinical psychological approach to the topics in my zine, I aimed to reduce common cognitive thought distortions that can lead to paranoia or anxiety, such as catastrophizing or black-and-white thinking.
Brainstorming done on Miro in a full-class meeting
During this early portion of my workflow, I was also figuring out other aspects of the design, such as a riso-friendly color palette that matched the themes of my topic and imagery well. I also built out potential audiences for my zine, and included some of the extensive research I had conducted on nuclear anxiety and paranoia. I was also referencing several different visual styles, some historical and some more modern. While looking at historical references, I wanted to exclusively look at protest and outcry poster and print design from World War II, the Vietnam War, and the Cold War, as these periods of history were closely intertwined with the history of the atomic bomb.
FIRST DRAFT
Here's my first draft that I presented to my cohort for our class critique. (Note: pages 2-5 have been flipped for legibility, which makes the pageflow of the zine difficult to figure out. Trust me, I get it).
When creating the imagery for this zine, I wanted to challenge myself to experiment with photo manipulation as opposed to strictly relying on illustration. This would draw visual parallels to a lot of the counter-culture image treatment styles during the Vietnam War protests, which I saw a lot of during my visual research, but I also love the way that images are printed in two-color zines and how the values and tones are translated into such a limited color palette. However, I interjected some modern influence as well, utilizing hand-drawn type and illustrated embellishments to accompany use of image.
I had a lot more text than any other zine in my cohort, so I tried to make it as easy to digest as possible by highlighting key points in bright red to lead the eye through big blocks of text. I had to be careful to pick my words carefully, as I couldn't have text below a certain point size or I would risk illegibility upon printing on the risograph!
The back of the Magic Zine can be unfolded into an 11x17 poster. I chose to edit a famous 1965 anti-war poster, believed to have been designed by Wilfred Weisser, a German artist, to protest the Vietnam War. A lesser-known fact about the now famous peace symbol is that the crossing lines design within the circle was designed to represent a nuclear bomb! This poster was also used as the back cover of my folded zine.
FINAL SOLUTION
Here you can see a final flat of my zine as well as a walkthrough video of the trimmed and folded zine! I took feedback from the class and my instructor and made some small edits from my drafts; more attention was paid to extending page designs across spreads, and adjusting the front cover hand-written type (as someone had helpfully pointed out, the front cover of my first draft made my zine seem much more intimidating and anxiety-inducing than the contents of the zine really are). I was happy with the final result, and was excited to hand them out during our exhibition!
A picture of our exhibition mural at December's Artwalk! (I'm the one with the GE to the right of the central logo).
