exhibition catalog
deZINE
to design an exhibition catalog and 'curate' relevant artifacts based on a design-related topic of our choosing.
My exhibition, titled 'deZINE,' centers around the design of zines through the ages and how they became powerful voices of people.
The challenge
Prof. Melissa Kuperminc
SCAD Atlanta
Mentor
Winter 2023
Completed
typography / catalog design
Skills Used
"a self-published work of original or appropriated texts and images, usually reproduced via a copy machine," but really, they're stories.
Zines are
According to Wikipedia,
The design of zines
In order to create an exhibition of zines, I first started to research through zines I could possibly curate. I wanted the exhibit will take you through zines that marked history - from the Secession to Riot Grrrl - and give the viewer an idea of the power of expression in a time before social media and the internet.
I drew tons of great imagery from early Art Noveau publications (like Jugend and Ver Sacrum) as well as magazines that depicted works of Modernism (like Bauhaus journals and Blast). For more recent zines from the punk era, I visited the SCAD library to get authentic scans of the real thing.
Through my own research of zines, and actually finding some outrageous ones in the SCAD library I realized something.
Zines are stories. They're stories told by people, messages people want to share, expressed in a way that they want to tell them. They gave people a voice in before the internet was a thing. They are not bound by a fixed art, photography, or typographic style, and they capture a culture in a way that mainstream media cannot hope to achieve.
so why should zines be bound by a single art style?
For years and years we've found a whole lot to say,
Layouts and (design) libraries
For my typography, I was particularly inspired by the numerous typewriter-esque-generated fonts that I came across during my research. I wanted to pay homage to the style, so I used Museo, a slab serif that's a lot easier to read.
The speech bubble became my visual tool, since my focus was on the fact that zines were personal tools of expression. In my explorations in trying to make them work, I began to overlap them to show how one era of print publications always bled into another, and I used pieced together a variety of images across time periods to really get the message across. After all, collages are vital in punk zine culture. It was only right that I incorporated them in my own work.
I made 'container spreads' for to showcase different aspects of my catalog. Think of them as empty containers in which I could drop my content (and mixing them up between spreads would keep them looking fresh).
It's DIY 'till I die!
(pretty punk of me, dont'cha think?)
Do it yourself (No, really. Do it.)
What gripped me about zines was how versatile they were. They came in all kinds of different sizes and shapes and folds. Every page turned brought on a whole new surprise and a whole new wave of delight, and that's something I wanted my catalog to reflect as well.
I made a folder of mini-zines that folded out into punk band posters. I printed out stickers and used little accordions that popped out from the pages. deZINE is truly the DIY project that all zines are.
Zines are typewritten. They're scrawled hastily onto scrap paper. They're black and white and blue and pink and green and every color ever. They're stapled together, and bound with glue and string. They're illustrated and doodled with crayon and marker and ballpoint pen. They're as big as a magazine, as thick as a novel, so tiny they could fit into your palm.
They're DIY. They're crafty. They're expressive. But most of all, they're FUN. I wanted to make sure my catalog reflected that.
So deZINE your own story.
(and staple it together when you're all done).
