spectator / evaluation

Spectator was a brief in which a fully realised magazine was produced based around an A7 zine created in the DrMe workshop. The overall concept of the original zine is to remind people of nature and nudge them towards appreciating the natural beauty of the world. The final deliverables of this project was a 68 page magazine with content gathered from various sources to highlight the Earth and all it's wonders.

Creating Spectator in a digital format rather than in a collage based zine was the first challenge of this brief. Research was conducted based around collaging and zine making, and the results were that there is no right or wrong way to do this. I collected a lot of images that were scanned in and digitally manipulated to create a collage effect. There was a suitable amount of content for a magazine which explains the concept in the first page and the last page of the publication with a sentence split in two. This invites people to flick through the pages and see all of the content in the book before realising what it is actually about.

I feel that this brief could be improved by the overall finish of the publication. Perfect binding was the preferred option to get the impression of a professional magazine, but this type of bind for a one-off 68 page publication proved to be quite costly. I opted for a staple bind instead, and used the print facilities in the university. As a large publication, it was quite difficult to get a professional quality by myself. I also feel that if I were to print this publication again I would use a different stock - gloss on the front and thinner, shinier paper inside to mimic a traditional magazine.

Overall, the project has met the brief and I have produced a suitable deliverable that gets the core concept of the initial zine across. The time planning of this project was effective and meant I was able to get the brief finished on time.