For this collaborative project, when reviewing the photography students I was instantly drawn to Phoebe Ball’s work; its bold, colourful and has an incredibly prominent in your face punk/ grunge style. Upon reading her brief, she basically says that she wants a logo and maybe some branding and web design , all of which communicates here style and the in your face nature of her photography. I basically got the impression she didn’t really know exactly what she wanted, so as well as a logo design I decided to propose to her that we collaborate on a zine/publication which will display her best work or work from a recent shoot that she can send to potential clients as a creative alternative to a business card, sort of a little portfolio. She mentioned in the brief she wanted a business card or something to send out so that would work well. Also, by doing a zine together, thew project will have a lot more collaboration. From here I decided to do some research into publications and some initial logo designs to show her when we had our first meeting.
Publication Research
King Kong Magazine - King Kong Magazine is a biannual art and fashion magazine which prides itself on really pushing the boundaries and being entirely ‘fearless’ in the imagery and material they put in their magazine. Mikel Benhaim, one of the cofounders of the magazine studied architecture and doesn’t have any formal graphic design training, leading to what he describes as ‘chaotic orders, unexpected designs and accidental design decisions which turn out working well’. It’s Nice That describes the magazine as having a ‘continually anarchist attitude that disregards all graphic design rules’. The magazine really conveys an attitude and style that is similar to Phoebe Ball’s photography, each page is so different from the last, its a chaotic and diverse explosion of colour, type and photography and looking at some of it’s design could really inform the design of this zine for Phoebe.
Dazed - The editorial design and content of Dazed Magazine has a very similar feeling and style to King Kong, only a bit more refined and minimal. Never the less, when It’s Nice That talked to Jamie Reid, the Art Director of the magazine who was hired 3 years ago, they said “The beauty of a fresh young thing with a stark, no bullshit approach to design is a fearlessness that rejects such dull accoutrements as templates or fixed structures, carried doggedly from issue to issue. Jamie cites reference points as diverse as Patti Smith posters, Scandinavian book covers and vintage transsexual porn magazines, and he says each edition of Dazed will look thoroughly different from the next”. These are definitely values that would be good to carry through to this photographic publication. The glossy full bleed photographic pages of Dazed really give prominence to the photos themselves in the hierarchy of the page, with typography serving as a secondary design decision and accompaniment often.
Grunge and Punk Influences
While the layout and freeness of King Kong and Dazed will inform the publication a lot, it’s worth looking at other points of visual research aspects like typography and layout. There are so many DIY punk zines and just as many modern zines which replicate that style; what is important is to fuse this DIY anarchist ethos with sophisticated design, resulting in a stylish and bespoke publication. Likewise when looking at grunge publications, David Carsons work springs to mind, especially stuff like Raygun; these covers and layouts are a bit more contemporary and would be a bit more applicable with bold colour and full bleed images, also it should be noted that often the type and other aspects such as the barcode on the cover are laid out in relation to the photography and are often in unusual and chaotic layouts, giving the photo the spotlight. Some of these ideas would be good however again, replicating Carson’s grungey type and layouts would be too much of a pastiche and would not have enough originality, it need’s to be fused with other more contemporary design methods.
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