Emma's Creative Diary

My Final Zine

I am really proud of my final zine, I think it is quite successful and even though it did not photocopy perfectly I think it adds to the charm, individuality and hand made effect of the publication.

I only tweaked a few minor things from my last zine to this one before figuring out how on earth to photocopy the things!
Anyway I figured out out in the end and after many experiments and alot of printing credits they were all copied. A real achievement :)
The next part was just as tricky, making sure the folds were dead centre and all the parts I added on by hand afterwards (like the swing tags, bits of colour and string to bind it) we in the same place. I think I managed it quite effectively. I really enjoyed doing this brief, it was something different and I felt like I could be really experimental.

After reviewing my developed concepts I have decided that my first concept, the illustrative one, is the strongest visually therefor I have carried this one through.

To develop on from my last concept I have edited the content as the previous zine was too much like a book of advertising. I needed it to have more of an angle therefore I decided to make it more about how the shops survive up The Strait, especially against their biggest competition, Primark. To back up the points im making in the zine I have included quotes from my interviews.

I kept the swing tags in the zine because it is a fun element which I think would appeal to my target audience, i ave also kept the illustration and photos of the products available up The Strait to better back up the points I make and the quotes I include. I have also kept the zine quirky by using different hand written fonts against a fairly basic background.

My third and final developed concept is mainly a fun and colourful hand drawn zine with occasional collage of the Primark logo and some sewing for a more personal touch.
The sewing would have to be done by hand on all 5 zines to keep it colourful and effective.

The content for this zine starts off with a strong message of Anti Primark which gives the zine good direction, the rest of the content puts across reasons why people should shop on The Strait rather than up the high street featuring photos of the shops and products that could be found

The problem with this concept is that I will have to colour in black and white so the coloured borders would come out grey or have to be added afterwards by hand EXACTLY THE SAME…. quite hard to do!

My second developed concept is made up from a background that has been sponged in watercolour and then stuck cut up photos, masking tape and taped down, printed words on it. I like this style but i’m not sure if it suits my community and target audience.

The content for this zine is more focused on reasons why they don’t have as much custom as the high street and why people should think about them and consider shopping up The Strait.

After reviewing my first concepts in session I have narrowed the 5 concepts down to 3.
This is my first developed concept with content. It is based on one of my original concept, the illustrated one.
The angle of this concept is to advertise the boutiques up The Strait to people visiting Lincoln to try and get them more custom when its not Christmas or the Summer. I have used a tag line throughout ‘Shop Strait’ to keep the theme and increase impact on the message i’m trying to put across. I think the illustrative style is quite successful and would suit my target audience (16 - 25 year old females)

I have added a fun element by making swing tags out of products you can buy in the shops I am advertising as well as illustrating a necklace I bought in Mono Boutique when I was conducting my interviews.

On some pages I have given reasons why people should consider shopping on The Strait with cute and fun illustrations.

These are my first zine concepts. I experimented a lot with media using background sponged with water colour, coloured card, ripped paper taped down, crumpled paper, tissue paper and illustration.
I layered the materials up on them to try and create interesting textures and I think they worked quite well however not all of them were appropriate for my target audience (16-25 year old females).
I used string a lot too because its quite a tactile material that I could do a lot with, it could be used for fastening the zine together or just for decoration, I think its quite a rustic material which reflects the historical feel of The Strait.

My design with the red card would not photocopy very well because it would be black writing on a grey background which is not very easy to read. To make this idea work I would have to photocopy on red card.

Some photos taken whilst conducting interviews

Interviews

I went up the Strait to interview some of the shop keepers to find out how they manage to survive in that particular part of town and where their biggest competition comes from.

The first shop I went to was called ‘Ego’ which sells vintage and new clothing, the owner had opened the shop 20 years ago which clearly shows it is possible for independent shops to survive. She said that she got an eclectic mix of customers in her shop as the vintage clothes appealed to students and older people, plus she offers a 10% student discount. However has found that people don’t generally bother to walk as far as steep hill and stick to shopping in the high street. She was telling me that there used to be a large car park where ‘The Collection’ now is and since that was knocked down numbers of people that visit her shop have fallen.
I found out that Primark was big competition with the Boutiques up the Strait, Ego, Ruby Red and Mono Boutique all said the same thing, to keep the business going they say they try to order in stock that can not be found on the high street in order to keep them unique.

Something that became clear whilst conducting the interviews was that there was a strong community feel, a lot of the shops mentioned that they were friends with other shop keepers up the strait as they are all independent shops so like to support each other, Ruby Red said they all like to have a chat and gossip with each other. An employee in Yak sad that the relationship between the shops up the strait were stronger than ever because of a new business improvement programme that has been set up. Similarly the owner of Ego said that they have meetings to try and come up with ways of attracting people to the Strait.

Positives of working up the Strait are: being located in the historical part of town;tourism; customer focused products on sale; one to one sale; friendly atmosphere; wide variety of shops; lower rent costs; eclectic mix of customers; attracts students; meeting people from lots of other towns and countries and finally views of the Cathedral.

The most common negatives of working up the Strait was that there was no parking close, because they are not situated near the high street people don’t tend to walk to their shops and the icy and snowy weather can cause problems. (as well as the climb the morning after a night at the pub according an employee of Harding House!)

Shops visited:

Yak
Ego
Harding House
The Bag Shop
Carousel Chocolates
Mono Boutique
Ruby Red
Naturally Gifted
The Harbour Florist

Boutique business cards from Steep Hill interviews

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