Using your research into artists’ books and fanzines as a starting point, think about their physical or design qualities, and creatively apply some of these approaches to your own designs.

For example, there’s a distinctive visual quality to many fanzines which comes from a ‘cut and paste’ approach to designing and through the use of cheap photocopying and printing. Punk fanzines in particular make a virtue out of having limited resources, no computers and little, or no, formal training as graphic designers. Use your sketchbooks to experiment with a similar ‘cut and paste’ approach by cutting and collaging magazines and other material. What does this approach offer you as a book designer?

Alternatively, you can find other ideas you would like to test out in your sketchbook. You don’t need to make any finished designs, just give yourself room to experiment and try things out.

OCA Book Design 1: Creative Book Design

For this exercise I was asked to explore some of the alternative methods of creating and publishing books or zines to see how using less mainstream techniques may affect the design outcomes of the final piece.

As one might think cutting corners can have a profound effect on the final outcome. Using certain methods to create your designs can unlock certain paths that would not be possible with some of the mainstream methods. I expect using these types of creating may create a less expected, controlled and predictable outcome. This in turn will probably lead to a rougher look that communicates DIY.

I wanted to see what I can find around the house to do some cut and paste methods, then perhaps photocopy these and see what the outcome looks like.

I was using some magazines and books and started by photocopying some pages in black and white before cutting out certain elements and pasting them onto an A4 piece of paper. This exercise really reminded me of a few that I have done in previous modules. The effect was the same, it was really conductive of experimentation and did unlock a playful part of my brain that allowed me to try things out by placing different elements on the page and shifting them around until I find a composition that I find pleasing.

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It was really liberating not to think about any particular end goal just trying to come up with something that looked cool. I was just randomly selecting images and photocopying them and adding them to a page until I was roughly happy with the outcome. It was simple yet effective.

I was also using some elements that I created with charcoal for a mark making course. It was quite interesting how the image started to come together.

Once I had a rough composition in mind, I started to reassemble this on the glass of my scanner to recreate the same image.

This was slightly unexpected as I wasn’t able to place everything too precisely due to the fact that I needed to place the images face downs so they can be copied. I could have done the same by glueing the images to a piece of paper, but I really liked the randomness of this process.

I really started to like how it taken form, but something was missing. I begun to experiment with adding some marks to the photocopied image to outline certain elements, but ultimately didn’t like this effect.

I was thinking that I should add some typography to the image but wasn’t too sure what I’d like to say. I decided on the word “fly”. I thought this has connected with my image itself for multiple reasons, such as the flies and also because of the little astronaut in the hand. I wanted to make this less obvious though, so I decided to just throw the letters in randomly.

Image credits:

• Fly and eye on forehead: Jamie Wells (http://www.visualjamie.com)
• Face: Cristopher Bretz (https://www.artstation.com/saltybretzel)
• Hand and astronaut: Francesca Resta (http://www.nijiart.it)
• All taken from ImagineFX Issue 193

Reflection

I think the final outcome is pretty interesting. It has been through the photocopier about 15 times by the time I managed to get together my final image. I think this gives it a nice grungy quality and I really enjoy the way it turned out.

I think this exercise was a very good foundation for some further experiments. I think I might employ this technique when it comes to creating some future work. I love how random the results are.