Manifesto (4): i) How we put everything together and ii) the struggle

We were quite inspired by one of the zines from last year, where thee spreads have mirroring pages, one innocent and another macabre. We wanted to have a similar contrast between the Queen's content and the uprising Rebel's content of overthrowing the queen. We experimented with different effects such as using negatives. In the end we had a plan to put the queen's content on the left and the rebel's on the right of the spread. Therefore we decided that the right page will be mainly occupied with words, so we can add red rebel's marks on them after we print the black and white Queen's version. 

Working Process

We were each in charge of the production of our zine: Olivia designs small logos and writes the queen's speech; Katie writes content for the queen's propaganda; Guy does the rebel's text; All of us contributed to the graphics of the zine such as the diagrams. Then one of us would scan the images, which I would then edit and compile in Indesign. 

Logos Olivia drew and for different sections in the book.

Guy's texts (on the rebel's side).

The diagram of barter Katie drew, which I then edited on Photoshop to make the diagram more geometrical.

Edited version.

These are Ola's drawings which on the side has an unexpected "watermark". We didn't manage to use it in the end but it was an interesting and realistic effect.

Gosia's sketch of the queen parasite as a godly figure, with reference to this painting:

I experimented with Gosia's sketch digitally and created a propaganda image/ poster. It is fun to add on to existing images and to manipulate them digitally.

And here's the first version of the queen's part of the book:

It was Tuesday when we finished the Queen's "plain" version. On Wednesday we photocopied printouts of the Queen's version and experimented with how we wanted the rebel's markings to look like: we each drew our own interpretations on several copies with red dry drawing materials such as coloured pencils, crayons and oil pastels. We also tried collaging our (Rebel's side of the) drawings onto the document. We decided to pool together everyone's efforts on Thursday morning and vote together which markings work best on each page. I think it was a very effective and productive working method, because everyone was free to experiment with the copies and weren't precious with them. We had a wide range of variations to choose from the end, and we had very fruitful discussions on what we liked about each other's work, and what elements of our drawings could be merged together.

The Struggle

The challenge was during our tutorial with Irish and Harry on Thursday afternoon. Their feedback on our dummy was that we were in the right direction, but we could change many things: in order for the document to look more official, which is something we want to achieve, the document can, e.g.:

-have only two consistent font sizes
-have better front cover layout

-images can be more graphic and minimal (because the queen's version is supposed to be boring and less expressive; images shouldn't be too stylized)

-some images don't match the style/ palate of the "official document", such as the religion godly parasite figure and the ancient map

It became very stressful because there were then tons of things we need to change, including most of the images, and we only had one day left. It felt like we backtracked back to Tuesday to work on the official document, when the rebel's add-ons are the main casts of the zine. However, their feedback is constructive and indeed helped us to perfect the zine to look more like an official document. Irish also guided me to go through nitty-gritty details of how the layouts can be improved, such as not needing to bold and increase the size of the type at the same time. 

We also then struggled with how we should add the rebel's marks. Choices were:

1. print the queen's version, draw directly on top, scan (and modify colours if needed)/ photocopy and print

2. drawing rebel's marks on tracing paper, scan and add digitally, print

3. draw rebel's marks digitally and print

2. was their suggestion because then the colours between red and black will be better maintained (so black remains black). We then experimented with all three methods, while at the same time redoing the graphics. I really appreciated how all of us embraced this and decided to make this better, allocating tasks efficiently and staying until pizza time (which is 8PM) to get this done.

We tried doing 2. and modified it to be red digitally. Some effects worked well and very textural, but the result didn't match the document very precisely and I was still changing the layout. The outcome was also more rough and felt detached to the original surface. Therefore, we decided not to use this method.

We also had already existing drawings which we wanted to add on the queen's document. For instance, these drawings from Ola show the queen's oppression on the being's abilities to outperform their conformed roles. 

(Ola's original sketchbook drawings)

(Ola's drawings, edited in Photoshop. Two red versions.)

So we thought of 3., which seemed more convenient to just add the rebel's markings digitally on the document. For example, we overlaid Ola's drawings and let Guy do the writing of the text. We each contributed a flower on the flower page, since we wanted to show that the rebels are also capable to expressing emotions other than anger.

This is another page we decided to keep, as Guy's spider was very visually dominant and impactful, whilst it did not block Ola's original sketch.

But there are some pages where we thought the effect wasn't as strong, and was more controlled due to the digital medium. There was a strong urge to do undo everything and as a result we worked quite slowly. We found it very frustrating. 

Therefore, in the end, we decided that it is after all best to trust our instincts and work directly on paper. With the chosen rebel marking drafts and plan we had on Thursday morning, we produced all of the final rebel markings on Friday morning. I found it to be another productive and healthy working day as we all knew what we had to do: Guy was in charge of the text and font, Katie was great at creating textures and Olivia wrote a Rebel's emotion speech on the back of the zine. The ironic thing is, the actual making of the rebel's side took us less than an hour; though I'm glad the final outcome is still very much informed by our previous discussions, experimentations and planning, which allowed everyone to have a similar vision of what the final zine should look like.

We found out that my sketchbook paper was a great matte/ coarse printing paper to use, which also creates a rough effect for the rebel's version. Gosia and Ola then photocopied the zines using the "red and black colours only" function, so the colours remained red and black only, which worked very effectively. Then Olivia and I folded, stapled and trimmed the zines.

This is the final version (it doesn't look as good when I scan it):

We're all super proud of our zine! One thing I really appreciate is how everyone tries to contribute constructively and critically, including giving honest feedback and producing discussions of other's work. It is after all more challenging but meaningful to reach a collective decision and consensus, rather than just to group everyone's individual work into one booklet in the end. I think we had a genuine exchange of ideas and took other's suggestions to account without sticking to a particular vision in one person's head. Or at least that's what I think!