Initially I planned to use Spread 5 as a meditation chart/calender to introduce practice and routine to the reader as consistency is key, but this idea felt a bit childish and I was worried because of my simple and friendly art style, I would create a children’s book, so instead I opted to use this space to add a more sophisticated and detailed illustration that would appeal to a larger range of audiences. I really liked the landscapes I had produced earlier in the project but I thought they didn’t fit with the style of the zine enough, I wanted to create a friendly character, within a more sophisticated layout, I had the idea of a diver at the bottom of the ocean as not only are images of the sea very calming and associated with white noise for sleep but also fit my pallet really well.

I really liked this image and considered making a print of it, but I knew that my zine was using a square page format, and id either have to spread this across two pages, or I would have to cut down the design to fit the new format. I re drew this image as it is in photoshop, using a rough texture brush to add a bit more grit, as I knew that working with a fine line with the ink texture brush I was using before would lose the analog feel that was consistent across my zine. Unfortunatley I cant find the initial digital drawing as I think I may have left it on a hard drive in Brighton but I managed to find my next iteration where I tried to simplify the background overall, and instead of having 3 layers I used a gradient to show depth.

I really liked this design, I think it fits pretty well into the square format but would like to continue developing the A3 version for my own personal work, I used the landscaping elements I had learned in my previous explorations to create a coral reef type of background and I think this helps frame the composition and ties a lot of the colours together. I wasn’t happy with the colour of the diver and felt that the saturation was too high, so I swapped these for the pallet I was using in my zine.

This design was finished and It fit well with the zine as I had hoped, but I still needed to figure out what to pair it with, because this page is more busy and detailed than the rest of my zine, I knew that visually keeping its complimentary page simple was important as it would help keep the expectations of the reader consistent with what would be on the next few pages. I didn’t have to think much about what to do here and opted for a big green box, this box would be used to explain the transition away from meditation and onto my next exercise in mindfulness, Reflection