Clothes: Zine
Clothes Zine is a print format zine that combines the topics of tattoos and clothing—conveying that those with tattoos find the art form to be another kind of clothing to express themselves through. The zine combines photography, poetry, and personal anecdotes to portray the feeling of comfort and control that expression through tattoos gives people.
Gathering Resources
Digital Production
Physically manipulated text using fabric
and cut out paper.Physical Production
Process
My process for this zine can be broken down into three parts: gathering resources, digital production, and physical production.
When gathering resources for this zine, I knew I wanted to use my own content for the project. I wanted to include both poems about the comfort of clothes and the comfort that people take in expressing themselves through tattoos, so I interviewed subjects for the zine about their tattoos and how they are a part of their self-expression and their personal “wardrobe”.
I then photographed some of the subjects I interviewed to tie the imagery of the zine with its text content. When editing the images, I wanted to give the photos the warmth of the content matter of the zine and adjusted the coloration appropriately.
Following shooting the images for the zine, I researched poems that fit the content of my images. The poems serve as a supporting role to my images.
Before and After of Edited Images
When figuring out the layout and format of my zine, I decided to rely on my images as guides for my text. I opted for a larger page format to allow the images to be the main focal point of the zine, the text taking a supporting role as part of my project. I arranged my type to align with points of interest in my images.
As I chose typefaces for my zine, I thought about the purpose that each piece of text would serve:
After choosing my typefaces, I began experimenting with methods of physical and digital manipulation of type to create detail in the zine. I experimented with cutting out lettering, using various textures, and printing lettering using a letterpress roller.
The steps for physical production involved packaging my files for print, selecting paper, laser printing, letterpress printing, and lastly binding the book.
Laser cut wood type printed on letterpress.
Digitally manipulated type.I faced some difficulty in my production process, for I had some trial and error with printing, and I had never used the letterpress or a sewing machine before, but I enjoyed the process of getting to physically put together my zine. This project is one that I am connected to personally, so I’m excited to have physical copies to keep as a part of a collection.
“Is it a poem? Is it a headline? A name? A page number?”
These questions allowed me to think about the formality of the text and how the typeface would serve its purpose. For the more formal text (such as names and titles), I chose a bolder sans serif font, and for more expressive text (such as poems and anecdotes) I chose a light serif font and an italic serif font from the same type family.
