Zine

Project Type: Individual (Coursework)
Activities: Coming up with the Zine topic, ideating and planning the zine, designing the zine
Tools: Adobe Photoshop, Hand Drawing

Process Map:

Finding the Trigger

Background:

  • As part of the postgraduate diploma course “Design for Media,” I learnt about the process of creating a zine and how it could be used for effective communication.

  • Creating the zine helped me understand the confluence between graphic design and communication strategy very well.

  • I was required to create a zine for any “How to…?” type of question through which I could describe the process behind how to perform a certain action

Deciding what I want to communicate:

  • While deciding what I wanted my zine to be about, I considered that since it was my first time creating a zine and wanted to ensure that the topic was something that I could relate to.

  • At the same time, I wanted the zine to be fun and functional in terms of teaching people something.

  • With these considerations in mind, I chose to create a zine that communicated “How to Shoot a Basketball?”

Research and Ideation

(Rough diagrams and notes planning the purpose and content for the zine in a specific layout)

Designing the Zine

Learnings:

The first step, before moving on to the visuals and actual design of the zine on tools and softwares, was to organize my content in the form of a layout.

  • My initial idea involved demonstrating how to shoot a basketball with a narrative surrounding the Lebron vs Jordan GOAT (Greatest of all Time) debate. This idea became very complicated due to the amount of content that was being planned and the fact that the original purpose of telling people how to shoot a basketball was getting lost.

  • As a result, I decided to focus my zine purely on the tutorial on “how to shoot a basketball.”

  • The content was planned in such a way that people would be able to read or view each step in the process, understand it, and then attempt to do it themselves

  • The target audience for my zine were people who had not played the game of basketball due to fear or lack of knowledge of the basics

Individual Pages of the Zine

  • Using and understanding the zine as a medium of communication

  • Understanding colour schemes and visual elements in the process of communication specific to zine creation

  • Using Adobe Photoshop to design textual and visual content

  • Implementing content strategy and planning for effective communication

Pages organized in the layout of a zine