I started to experiment more visually, by directly drawing over the top of newspaper adverts and making digital collage on Photoshop. I liked the effect of these images, I think the imagery from the adverts linked well with the topic of romanticisation and relationship break down, and the processed typography completed the illustrations well, adding more structure and format the the individual images

I attended a life drawing session where we where looking at movement and drawing inanimate objects with movement; this helped me consolidate the idea of personifying the drawings I had done of the flowers, to reinforce the idea of creating mataphors out objects.

I started off with some observational ink drawings of some dead flowers I had in my room; I bought these flowers after the break down of a relationship, and did not throw them away. I started to think about the meanings behind the act of giving flowers, and also what had made me keep them. I wanted to explore the semiotics, and metaphors I had created around the flowers, and how one can create such a memory association with objects.

After Having enjoyed the process and creating the outcome from the first part of the project, I wanted to create a sequel zine, that would carry on the theme of exploring a journey of self realisation. I decided I wanted to focus on a metaphorical theme of exploring unnecessary romanticisation of specific places or objects after the break down of a relationship. I wanted to explore a journey of trying to live in ‘The real world’ and the journey of stopping association of things with a certain person or past memories, in order to move on into another stage of life.

I recently saw an expedition at the oxo tower in Southbank, by an Artist called Luke Norton. I picked up this Zine at the gallery that had a summary of the work in the exhibition in it, I really liked the minimal composition and use of negative space in the zine layout. The exhibition itself was also very good, I really enjoyed the element of ‘found object word art’ , as this is something I enjoy about using text in my own work

”You make your own reality

Behind a wall inside your head

and unless you open it up, no one can share or understand it”

lets just say that graphic design isn’t really my forte, even though I am not very good at making things look uniform and linear and straight, I always have a very specific vision in my head of the aesthetics oh how I want things I create to look. On this particular zine I really struggled on the layout when arranging how I wanted the image, text and type to look – I really wanted to experiment with negative space, with a quite minimalist composition of image, photos and words on each page, I often find a minimalist composition harder to get right that a more visually busy one, so I spent a lot of time making sure things where Simi straight. In hindsight I probably should have used Indesign, instead of Photoshop to orange the actual pages of the zine and it would have been a lot less time consuming . I thought my decision to use so much negative space in the layout was a good one, as I think it focusses the audience to notice the small details of the image or photograph.

I started to abstract the pictorial quality out of the photographs I had took, reducing them down to basic shapes and forms, and line work. I thought these would be good to construct some kind of pattern that could be used as a contingent theme throughout the zine.

I wanted to create some imagery to represent the tube in London, and the stops I was familiar with when I would take this weekly journal. I have bit of an obsession with collecting Sanpellegrino drink labels, as I really enjoy the bright colours, and when I was arranging them in my journal I was listing to a song by the cribs that mentioned the circle line, and I liked the idea of the labels representing these specific stops on the underground. I also think that the design of the drink labels are reminiscent of the underground symbol anyway.

I had a disposable camera that had half the film used up, half with photos I had taken in London of the journey in question I wanted to depict in the zine, I decided to fill the rest of the camera with imagery from train stations and other landmarks on the journey. I thought these photos would not only be good to feature in the zine but also a good premise to draw from.