This blog post covers my final layout for my zine…

From my original drafts of my zine layout I have made some slight changes in terms of the things which I was not particularly satisfied with, and this is what I came up with. The layout follows a pattern in which every second double page has a link between two portraits, connected by a theme/word, followed by a double page portrait. The themes I have covered are those which I find suppressing and significantly apparent within the general public, noticeably in areas which are highly populated and civilized such as St Helier. I also made the text/words small and in a simple font as I did not want this to distract the viewer from the aesthetic value of the images themselves. The final images that i have used for my zine all have minimal manipulation and editing as I did not want to make the aesthetic of the zine overly complicated as it was more about just getting the point of the social issues across.

This image (below) which I have decided to use as my page spread in the student collaborative ‘Future of st Helier’ newspaper article is a combination of a photograph from the Societe Jersaise photo-archive and some of the images from my first photo shoot. The idea behind this piece was to show how the aesthetics of the modern town are considerably less visually pleasing that those of the old urban landscape, and when imposed upon the archive photograph take away the charm from the photo. I believe that this image would work well in the newspaper due to its rustic and dated aesthetic mixed with the modern corporate elements that are included within it. Also as a full page in a newspaper, I believe that the boarder around the edge will frame the image itself in an eye catching way, and will look very effective in a newspaper.

Without actually knowing exactly when the original photograph was take, the ‘God Save The King’ banner in the foreground of the image shows the age of the archive photograph, as the image would’ve had to be taken before 6 February 1952 as that was the latest date of a reigning male British monarch. The clothing of the office worker, the street signs, the modern building and modern lamppost that have been added into the original photograph are the give away signs that the image has been manipulated as I have tried to make this obvious when editing, but also having in mind that I want the first glance of a viewer to just think that it is just a dated photograph.

Here are the information references from the archive of the original photo taken by photographer Francis Foot.