Zine Assignment Final Evaluation – 7/12/2020

My zine theme was about the importance of being out in nature during the lockdown, and the calming influence nature has on me. I never feel alone in nature, surrounded by life, from the wildlife to the different types of plants growing in weird and wonderful ways. There is nothing more calming than walking through a woodland with the birds chirping and the sun shining through the treetops.

I got a lot of my inspiration from looking at different magazines online, for example The National Geographic, researching the layouts on Pinterest and elsewhere. We looked at each other’s zines in the class and the different range of spreads, also inspired by our own work. 

I looked at four different artists’ work for inspiration for my photos (detailed on my blog). I researched in-depth and widely, to make sure that I made a zine I was happy with. The research I did influenced and impacted my work by improving the ways I took the photos. 

Overall, I am happy with the way my zine turned out and the final look of the zine. I decided to print out several drafts of my zine so I could have it physically in front of me to edit, making several changes to it before printing out the final zine. I am very happy with the changes I have made.

My ideas for my zine layout changed and developed the more I looked into different zines. I changed the orientation of the paper a few times because I didn’t know which the best way was to display my horizontal photos. I wanted to make sure that the horizontal photos weren’t sized onto a small page, so I made them all horizontal across two pages. 

The ideas for the pictures which were going to be in my zine never really changed except for when I was making the final edit and I decided to change out a photo of the Gower in Wales to a different picture, I took at Wistman’s Woods because I felt it showed the beauty of nature better. I think the images I have produced communicate the ideas behind my project, showing some of the landscapes and places I have enjoyed.

I used both my English and Maths skills to improve my project because I needed to know the measurements of the a4 piece of paper to make sure I created the correct size page on InDesign, and placed the pictures correctly. I needed to make sure that the information was grammatically correct. I also needed to make sure that I was on time for the deadlines of my zine. 

While creating my zine I learnt new techniques. I learnt how to use InDesign, how to create a booklet, how to lay out the pages and how to make sure that the quality of the print is up to my standards. I used InDesign because when researching the best adobe software to use it showed how InDesign was used by loads of different companies. I feel like I pushed myself to try new techniques and to complete my zine to a professional standard. I did find it hard at the start because I wasn’t familiar with InDesign, in comparison to photoshop, but I got the hang of InDesign after a while.

I believe the zine I created met the zine brief because of the theme, feeling lonely in the lockdown, and mental health, both of which improved when I was surrounded by nature. I wanted to ensure it matched the brief, so I went over the brief a few times to make sure the work I was producing met the brief. I wanted the reader to understand my personal experience and feelings during lockdown and the benefits I found by being in nature. I felt very alone in the first lockdown not being able to see all my family or friends or my boyfriend and being in nature really helped. I think my zine is quite effective on communicating my ideas and intentions. I feel that if people were to read my zine, they might think about going to the places featured in the zine. 

I enjoyed all the aspects of the work. I enjoyed picking out my favourite photos, the layout, the titles, the descriptions. The only thing I found stressful was making sure I had printed out the zine correctly and folding the pages in a straight line. I feel that I engaged with the zine project well, I liked doing the research into different zones. Nothing prevented me from completing the zine, although I did have a problem with the layout in the beginning when the template I bought on Adobe Stock at home, didn’t work at college, so I had to start all over again.

I am proud of the outcome of the zine and so happy with how high quality the photos look printed out and digitally. My only issue was when I printed my zine out, I know the college’s printers print darker than the imagery looks on screen, and I forgot to change the brightness of the front cover meaning it came out a lot darker. I want to work on printing out more zines on a larger scale. I wanted to put more than 20 pages in my zine, and have more than enough landscape photos to fill a lot more pages, I want to also work on creating a zine which is A4 instead of A5.