2. Because of COVID-19 we haven’t had as resources or even time to complete our FMP’s to the best of our
abilities. This meant that our projects weren’t going to be what we had originally imagined, mine
especially. At the start of our FMP’s I wasn’t sure what I wanted to make since my original idea wasn’t
going to work since we weren’t allowed to go outside or even meet up with people (this idea being to
create a documentary). However before long I came up with the idea to create a fanzine, since I liked
what we did in our previous print project, and talk about something that I’m interested in or liked. This is
when I came up with the idea for a fanzine based around art and illustration from different products
around the world (since I didn’t just want to limit my choice of products to the U.K.). My plan for this was
to talk about different products, write about why they’re popular/why people would be interested in
them and then even create my own illustrations. However this also didn’t go as planned and I have ended
up with a product that I don’t hate but also don’t like. This is mainly due to the fact that I was unsure
about how I wanted my product to look and ended up restarting numerous times until I finally came up
with a layout that I thought was at least acceptable.
There isn’t really a sort of creative title that I could’ve come up with for my fanzine. So I just decided to
name it ‘Art and Illustration’. Before starting our Contextual Research we were asked to create a proposal
where we could express our reasons for what we want to make, why we want to make it and how we will
go about creating it. In my proposal I stated that I would focus on artists from other mediums (such as
artists for products like manga, manhwa and even web novels) and I believe that I have done this, to an
extent at the very least.
3. Contextual Research
Before we began to research into various existing products we were asked to look into practitioners
and subjects related to what we were going to make. This would become helpful to us in the future
when we started our research. I decided to look into every artists/product that I was going to talk
about in my fanzine. However some of the artists I had written about in my contextual research didn’t
end up appearing in my final product which is mainly due to a lack of time. The first person that I
looked into was a Japanese manga artist named Aka Akasaka who drew multiple series’ over the years
but was most known for his 2015 rom-com series that is still currently serializing in 2021. Although I
liked the art styles that this particular artist used I ended up not including him in my final product
because I thought that there were other artists that held more a priority.
I then looked into another artist named Hiro Mashima. What I found interesting about this artist in
particular was the amount of controversy regarding his art with the mentions of self-plagiarism,
something that I though could include in my fanzine. The third artist I looked into was someone named
Kōhei Horikoshi. However much like with Aka Akasaka I ended up not including this artists in my final
product, this being due to the same reason. One of the main reasons why I didn’t include these two
artists is because I felt as if their art styles were much more simplistic compared to artists like Junji Ito
and Hirohiko Araki who are both well-known for their unique art styles. I mainly just wanted to focus
on artists/products that really stood out in terms of their art styles and how they were presented to us
as the audience.
4. Contextual Research
I found that when researching into different artists that the majority of them were artists from Japan
and were all manga artists. I thought that this wasn’t necessarily a bad thing however I didn’t just want
to include artists that all work in the same medium. This is when I remembered about a game series
that I was fond of and how much I liked the art styles used in each of their games. This being the artist
Shigenori Soejima who works for the company Atlus and is most well-known for his work on the
Persona series, working for Persona 3 onwards. Naoko Takeuchi is most well-known for her work on the
Sailor Moon series, which is extremely popular in Japan and even oversees. What makes her art styles
different to the other artists I’ve mentioned previously is due to the release of each of the artists
series’. For example Aka Akasaka’s most popular work released in 2015 and Hiro Mashima’s in 2012.
However Sailor Moon was published in 1992, meaning that the art styles is a lot older than the other
two. This makes the series appear a lot more unique than the other two.
As said previously I found that Junji Ito was someone that I had to talk about because of his unique
horror art style. He isn’t known for a particular series like the other artists I had looked into before.
What made him so popular is his notable works on various one-shot stories. I found him to be an
interesting artist to look at is the fact that he primarily works with horror aspects whilst others use
more light-hearted and less disturbing art styles. Finally I looked into Studio Ghibli as a whole, mainly
due to their beautiful artwork in their films. I mainly wanted to focus on Hayao Miyazaki since he is the
most well-known artist from that company. Since Studio Ghibli films are so iconic and famous for their
aesthetics and art styles I thought that this would be another good part to add to my fanzine.
5. Concept
As I have mentioned previously as well as in my proposal the overall concept of my project is to create
a fanzine based around art and illustration. This was the idea I had stuck with since the start of my FMP
and what I continued to stick with until the end of my project. Learning from the mistakes I have made
in the previous print project I was confident that I could make an even better fanzine. When I was
thinking about how I was going to create my project I already knew how I was going to make it but I
wasn’t as sure who I would make it for. I came to the conclusion that the best audience for me to try
and appeal to would be people who are fond of these kinds of particular products e.g. manga, manhwa
and web novels. Because I already knew how I was going to make my product I was able to use my time
somewhat efficiently in order to make sure I get everything I wanted done.
However this also didn’t go as expected because I ended up not knowing what I wanted the layouts of
my pages to look like for my fanzine. This meant that I had restarted my fanzine three times before I
finally came up with a layout that I thought was acceptable. If I could improve any of my work I would
want to definitely go back and add more pages to my fanzine. This meant that I would not only be able
to add the other artists that I had to get rid of but also add my own illustrations as well as analyze the
artworks and why we as the audience are attracted to them. However I don’t think that I would go back
and change any other part of my project. I could always go back and remove the artists that I didn’t end
up adding to my fanzine but I don’t think that this would improve my project. I think that it’s a better
idea to keep in the artists that I didn’t include and explain why and how I would’ve added them if I had
more time.
6. Technical Problems
There weren’t many technical problems that I faced during the creation of my fanzine. One of the main
problems I faced when making my product is deciding on how I wanted the layouts of my pages to look.
With my previous project I found that the layouts looked too simplistic and I wanted to try and void this
with my FMP. I don’t think that I have achieved this however I think that it is at least an improvement
from what I had created before. What I originally wanted with my layouts is for the pages to
incorporate the colour schemes and even art styles from the artists that I would be talking about.
However when I attempted to do this I ended up disliking it and scrapping the idea altogether.
Although the final layouts of my fanzine aren’t what I imagined or what I even wanted to originally
make I don’t that they’re necessarily bad but rather simplistic. This was something I wanted to try and
avoid but I ended up doing the same as the previous project. If I had some more time to go back I
would want to see if I can come up with different layouts. I would want these layouts to match with
artists art style and colour schemes, rather than just having a plain white background.
8. Existing Products – Analysis
This existing product is something that I have mentioned
previously in my planning as well as my research. This is a
magazine that I had found on a website called ‘issuu’. It is a
magazine dedicated to interviewing and showcasing artists and
their illustrations. I thought that this would be one of the best
to compare my work to since it is similar in the way of talking
about artists and their works.
An obvious similarity between my product and this product is
the page layouts. I mentioned previously in my planning phase
that I liked the page layouts of some of the magazines I had
found during my research. This being one of them. What I liked
about this product is the use of a coloured text box with a blank
white page. This makes the page look overall more appealing
compared to if you had just placed a text box with your articles
without any other sort decoration. I also think that the colour
schemes for these pages are quite similar to mine since they’re
both more pastel and bright. The reason why I went with this
colour for my own page is because I wanted to match the
colours with the image I was going to display on the page. Since
this page of mine was just an introduction to the whole of the
fanzine there wasn’t a lot that I wanted to write about in the
beginning. However the existing product is a page I had taken
from one of the last pages of the magazine. It was also an
interview with one of the artists they had showcased earlier
with their art so you would expect the page to be quite long in
comparison to my own.
9. Existing Products – Analysis
There aren’t many differences between these two products
that aren’t obvious already. One of these being that the
two products are showcasing two different things i.e. the
existing product is showcasing illustration and interviews
from famous artists in the U.K. or the USA for a particular
style of art whilst mine looks at various manga artists that
are primarily most known in Japan. They both showcase
two very different types of artwork and artists. Another
obvious difference between the two is the different colour
schemes used. I don’t think that the colour scheme for this
existing product is related to the artist that they were
interviewing. I know this because after reading the
interview page I looked up some of the artists work and I
didn’t find the image they used.
10. Existing Products – Issues
I problem I faced during the evaluation process was finding existing products that I could
compare to my own product. I couldn’t find any products that were similar to my own and I
didn’t just want to analyze random products that I had found. I wanted to showcase products
that were to my own in terms of the layouts, colour schemes or even the overall theme of the
fanzine. However I think that with this I might have had too high standards with what I would
want to compare with my own product. The existing product that I have found and compared
comes from issuu. It is also a product that I have mentioned in my previous works like my
research and my planning. I spoke about how I liked the layouts they used in their magazines
and thought that a similar and more minimalistic yet aesthetic style would work best with my
fanzine since I wouldn’t just want my audience to be distracted by the pages design and forget
about the articles I had written. I wanted a balance between an aesthetically pleasing page
alongside my articles. I think that this is something I have managed to accomplish to an extent.
Since I had to cut out the third double page spread for each of my artists due to a lack of time I
think that the fanzine could’ve been a lot better in terms of the detail and amount of
articles/writing I would have been able to add. In hindsight it may have been the better idea to
scrap the second double page spread (the page dedicated to the artists history and
achievements) and create the analyzing/my own illustrations instead. However since I had
already wrote the articles for those pages and didn’t for the third pages I think that I might
have wasted even more time.
11. Management Problems
I don’t think that I had much management problems through out my project. I think that until the start
of production I had managed my time well. Because of the amount of times I restarted my production
process I ended up with a product that I’m not very fond of. I also found myself rushing other work
because I had wasted a lot of time with production. Whilst writing this particular slide of my evaluation
I still haven’t finished some of my other work since I still have to improve with the feedback I had been
given. The original plan for my project was to complete all of the written work before we start
production and then receive feedback. I would then improve on that work during my days off or even
at the weekend. This of course didn’t happen either. I found myself unable to work from home due to
the amount of distractions and was only able to work effectively during my time at college. I was able
to work at home from time to time when I needed to get work done. This happened during the final
stages of production where I worried that I wouldn’t be able to finish on time. Fortunately I was able to
finish production on time and I can hopefully finish all of the written work on time as well.
12. Emotional Problems
I’d say that I experienced a few emotional problems through out my project. This mainly being toward
my production since I was worried that I wouldn’t finish on time. I’m happy that I was able to finish my
production on time but it isn’t what I originally wanted to create. Because of the amount of work I have
left to do even now it is a bit stressful and overwhelming but I think that in the end if I just focus at
both college and at home I’m sure that I will get my work done and handed in one time. Other than
those few issues that I’ve had through out this project I don’t think that there has really been any point
where I was unable to work because of stress of being overwhelmed. I’ve always just been able to
move on and get work done no matter what. I also haven’t had any issues with losing any work because
of a laptop malfunction or just misplacing work in general. I think that this is something that I have
done well to avoid. There were quite a few times where I missed college due to personal reasons,
meaning that I wasn’t there to listen to any important information that we may have been given.
However I don’t think that my absence had any effect on my final piece. This is because the majority of
the work we were doing was computer based and since I had a laptop that I had borrowed from
college, due to not having a functioning one myself, I was able to work at home.
13. Research
Conducting various forms of research is essential to figuring out what kind of audience I would like to
appeal to and who would want to view my fanzine. At first I just originally just looked into three existing
products but after receiving feedback I found that I could have added a lot more in terms of detail as
well as even including more existing products. So I made sure that I spoke about the products as much
as I possibly could (e.g. talking about the layouts, details, how I could incorporate these into my own
product) as well as including more than just three. I wanted to make sure that I had a variety of
different products rather than just focusing particularly on one type. I analyzed five products in total.
Two being magazine published by a Japanese company named Shueisha, the two magazines having two
very different target audiences and contents (Weekly Shonen Jump for younger male readers and
Ribon for younger female readers).
Since these two magazines had contents that were similar to what I was looking to put into my own
fanzine I made sure I made note of how the made their layouts and what other forms of information
they included. Although these two magazines and my own fanzine differ in terms of contents (since the
two existing magazines were used to publish artists works whilst mine primarily focuses on the artists
themselves) I still think that it was good to look into them because it gave me an idea as to how I
should present my fanzine to make it look as professional as possible. I then looked into a blog that I
had found when researching. This was called Creative Boom and it’s primary includes a variety of
articles, art and illustration as well as inspiration pieces. The website didn’t include the same type of art
that I was looking into however what I liked about the website was the layouts and how everything
looked.
14. Research
The next existing product I looked into was another website called issuu, something that I was already
familiar with/already knew about. This websites primary use is for people to showcase and publish
their work on a free platform. This allowed me to see a variety of different products that were related
to what I wanted to make myself. Looking at this website gave me an idea as to the type of layouts
people made specifically for their product. I searched products related to ‘art’ and ‘illustration’ and
found a lot of interesting fanzines/portfolios that I could take inspiration of to help me make my own
fanzine. After finishing my existing products research I then moved onto my primary research where I
conducted a survey to my intended audience, asking them questions that were specified to my project.
In the end I didn’t get many responses. Even though I asked a variety of people to conduct my survey a
lot of people didn’t bother to complete it meaning that I had a limit amount of responses.
However I was able to solve this problem by conducting more interviews. I thought that this would be a
better idea rather than just creating another survey since I didn’t have the time. Doing more interviews
is the better option since it will allow me to go into more detail when asking questions but will also
help my audience to go into detail as well. As a result I was able to find out a lot of information about
my audience and use it when creating my fanzine. I asked my audience various questions to do with my
fanzine in terms of design, what they would like to see/what they wouldn’t like to see, etc.
I also asked my audience if there was any specific artist that they would like to see and I was given a
variety of artists to think about. However quite a few of the artists mentioned were ones that I had
already planned to talk about. For my secondary research I went back to issuu to see what I could find
to help me with the construction of my fanzine. There weren’t many products that I thought could help
me but I still think that it was a good idea to look into various amounts of products to help me research
as much as possible.
15. Research
I don’t think that my secondary audience was very helpful for my end product however I think that it
was still a good idea to look into other products to see what kinds of layouts they used, how they wrote
their articles, how they advertised other products. I found all of this to be useful when considering
making my own product. When starting my planning I found that my secondary research had come in
handy because it helped me to come up layout ideas for each of the pages of my fanzine. During my
research I had looked into various artists that were going to end up in my final product, I was also going
to include artists that my audience spoke about as well. Although I’m happy with the results of my
research and the work I have put into it, I still think that there is more that I could’ve done.
16. Planning
I think that planning was one of the hardest sections for me to complete with this project. This was
because I wasn’t sure about what I wanted my fanzine to look like despite all of the research I had done
prior to this. I was able to come up with a few ideas as to what I wanted my fanzine to look like but in
the end I believe my fanzine looks entirely different from what I had originally planned. After looking at
all of the artists I decided to include in my fanzine I thought that it would be a good idea to make each
page unique to each artist that I was looking into e.g. since Studio Ghibli uses bright pastel colours
(mainly a variety of shades of blue) so I would want the pages to match that colour scheme. I decided
that I would dedicate three double pages spreads to each of my selected artists. The first double page
spread with be an introduction to the artist alongside some images that that are to do with some of the
work the artist has created. The second page would be based around the history of the artist talking
about their achievements, the works they have published over the years and any other information
that would seem both interesting and appropriate to what I was talking about. The third pages would
be about analyzing the art and going into detail about how and why it appeals to it’s intended
audience. I would also try to re-create these art styles myself to help showcase these art styles.
However I was unable to do this in the end and only ended up with two double page spreads for each
artist. This was because I had spent so much time redoing the whole of my fanzine because I didn’t like
the layouts I had made originally.
I wanted my fanzine to be a lot more detailed and include a lot more information than my previous
fanzine from the print project however I don’t think that I was able to achieve this due to poor time
management on my part. I also made knew that I needed to make a contents page but wasn’t able to
type of style I should go with. Since I was looking at so many different artists, all with different art
styles, it meant that I had to somehow incorporate them all onto one page. This was something else I
wasn’t able to achieve in the end because I was running out of time for the production process and had
to finish quickly.
17. Planning
In the original plan for my fanzine I had less artists. This is because during this stage I was still
conducting interviews and by the time I had finished them all I had a lot more artists that I was able to
look into, meaning I had a lot more I needed to go back and create pages for. I think that this was a lot
easier to do because by that time I was already used to coming up with ideas for the layouts for my
pages so this was something I could do fairly quickly. With my pages I wanted to make sure that I
included a mix between imagery and text since it was something that I struggled with in my previous
project. I was afraid to put too much text because I thought that it would make the page look too
crowded but I was also afraid to put too much imagery since it would mean that I wouldn’t have as
much text which would then make the pages seem too simplistic. I thought that finding colour schemes
for each of my artists would be easy since a lot of the artists used a specific type of colour scheme
depending on the overall themes of their works e.g. since Junji Ito is primarily a horror manga artist it
meant that he mainly used darker colour schemes. I made sure to include a colour scheme for each of
the artists that I was going to include in my fanzine rather than just having one specific colour scheme
for the whole of my fanzine. I was able to find these colour schemes easily by using the tools in
Photoshop which allowed me to indicate different shades of colours from their artworks.
I had originally planned to draw my own artworks at home and then come into college to scan them in.
I would them easily be able to import them into my fanzine pages and talk about them. Had I focused
on doing this in the beginning rather than creating the script for each of my pages I think that I
would’ve been able to include this into my final product. Writing my articles was a fairly easy job since I
had done a large amount of research before hand and that I also knew a lot about the artists I was
going to talk about already. Even though I didn’t include the third double page spread in my final
product I’m still glad I included it in my planning because it shows what my product was originally going
to be like.
18. Planning
When I started production I tried to recreate the pages I had made in my planning but I found that they
didn’t match with the ideas I had thought of and decided to spend a few days seeing what would work
well and what wouldn’t. I kept repeating this process until I finally came up with layouts that I didn’t
hate. Although I don’t hate the overall layouts of my fanzine I still think that they look too simplistic and
even boring. Out of everything in my product that I had to change I think that my articles were the only
thing I never had to go back and edit. I think that this is where my research and contextual research
played a big part for me at this stage in my project because it meant that I was able to write up my
articles quickly and then focus on the layouts.
19. Problem Solving
There were quite a few problems that I faced during the production phase of my project but I didn’t
encounter any problems during the writing phase. However I knew that there was always the risk of
something going wrong which meant that I had to plan ahead just in case something did end up
happening. I spoke about a variety of different problems and how I would fix the problem (e.g. if I were
to have a laptop malfunction I explained that I would need to make sure that my work is backed up not
only on a memory stick but on other websites or even my email as well). I wanted to make sure that I
could think of every problem that could occur during this project and think of how I could avoid it.
Since my project was based around needing only Photoshop rather than needing actors or even
equipment I think that I had less to think about in terms of issues. There were only a few problems that
I could come up when dealing with issues like Photoshop and I knew that these issues could be easily
solved.
I knew that I was able to get my fanzine printed at college but I was curious to see how much it would
cost to get it printed professionally. This would help my fanzine to look as realistic as possible.
Unfortunately I found that these kinds of things were quite expensive and it was something that I
wasn’t able to afford however I still think that it was a good idea to do some research and find out
more information. I conducted my experiment using two software's, Photoshop and PicsArt. Since I had
already used them before I wasn’t worried about not being able to use them. Since the Photoshop I use
on the college laptop I borrowed is rather outdated it meant that I was limited to what I was able to do
which is why I then decided to use PicsArt as well. I think that my experiments could’ve been better
however since they were conducted at home whilst not having access to any updated software I still
think that they’re acceptable. I didn’t necessarily find the problem solving to be helpful since I didn’t
encounter any technical problems however it did help make sure to keep all of my work backed up just
in case something did happen.
20. Production – Written Work
My written work is primarily the articles I wrote for my fanzine. Since I had done the appropriate
research before hand I wasn’t too worried about not being able to write anything. I think that the
written part of my fanzine is the most important since it’s what I’m most confident about with my
whole product. I already knew a lot about each of the artists I was looking into before hand so it was
easy for me to begin writing introductions to each person. However I made sure to fact check in order
to make sure I everything I was saying was one hundred percent accurate. I had already written up
about artists like Aka Akasaka and Kōhei Horikoshi (mentioned previously) but I didn’t end up including
those two into my fanzine so I think that this was a little bit of a waste. However I think that this was
also a good thing because if something were to happen like not having enough information on one
particular person it meant that I would be able to remove that artist from the fanzine and easily
incorporate one of the two into it instead.
I knew what I was going to write for each page and I stuck with this. I think that the amount of written
work I had done could’ve had an impact on my product. It would mean that I would have had too much
writing and would have remove some of it in order to make sure I kept the balance of both written
work and also imagery. Since I had originally planned to have three double page spreads for each of my
chosen artists it meant that there was a lot of the written work that wasn’t included in my final
product. A lot of my time when writing my articles went toward analyzing so I feel a little bit
disappointed that I couldn’t include all of my work in at the end.
21. Time Management
During my production period I had around 7 weeks to complete my fanzine, which is a shorter amount
of time than we normally we have had (this being due to COVID-19 I believe). I think that my time
management could’ve been a lot better, especially during my time outside of college. I was never used
to working at home so I never found an motivation to do any work whilst not at college. Had I worked
from home during the production process my days off or even at the weekend I think that my final
product would’ve looked a lot better than it has ended up. During the production period I was also
focusing doing work for Maths, which I thought at the time took a higher priority since it’s something
that I don’t want to have to repeat for yet another year. I ended up redoing the whole of my fanzine
two or three times before I ended up coming up with something that I could accept. I think that I could
have kept going until I came up with an idea that I really did like but since I was running out of time I
couldn’t. I think that if I had more time I would definitely work at home a lot more. If I did this it meant
that I would’ve been able to add a lot more not only to my fanzine but also all of the written work we
had done prior to this stage.
22. Reflection
During the production process I made sure to keep a PowerPoint talking about the process of each slide
in my fanzine and the process I did in order to make it. I don’t think that this PowerPoint is much of a
strength since I often forgot to write in it, meaning that a lot of production process isn’t written about
currently but it is something that I am going back through and updating. Making sure that I explain in
detail what I did, why I did and how this would help improve my fanzine. I rarely took any screenshots
during production time so this is something that I am also going back through and making sure that I
do. I made sure to include all of the final developed products in that PowerPoint as well to show the
full production process. I was also getting constant feedback from my tutor during this period of time
as well so I was always prioritizing this rather than doing a reflective diary. It is now something that I
am dedicating my own spare time to finish along with some of the other PowerPoint's that still need
work done. I think that getting constant feedback from tutor has helped me greatly because it showed
me the issues and how I could easily solve them. This meant that I could easily go back and improve on
what I did wrong or what I didn’t include enough detail into.
During the current evaluation phase I am also getting feedback on my fanzine from my audience, the
same audience that conducting my interviews. This has so far been helpful since it has shown me how I
could have made my product better. After explaining the situation of not being able to include the final
third double page spread in my fanzine a lot of them agreed that it would’ve improved my fanzine
drastically. This is something that I completely agree with and if I had more time it’s something that I
would give top priority in doing. Although I’m not happy with my final product a lot of my interviewees
seemed to like it and enjoyed reading it which makes me happy. If I had continuously written in my
reflective diary daily I think that this would have also helped my product since I would able to go back
and see what I could improve on.
23. Conclusion
Overall I am not happy with my final product since I known that I could’ve made it a lot better if I had
managed my time properly and especially if I had worked from home. I think that if we had the full 9
weeks like we were supposed to in order to create our products I think that it would’ve been possible
for me to include everything I wanted to. However I still think that this does appeal to my audience and
I know this because of the peer feedback I have received. I also made sure to include aspects that
related to each artist that I was speaking about, this includes imagery that matches with the articles I
had written as well as colour schemes that match any artwork I may have included. Had I had the
money I would definitely want to try and see if I could get my fanzine professionally printed however
this isn’t currently an option for me. I am a bit disappointed in this project overall (including all of the
written work we had done up to the production stage) but it’s something that I can learn from and do
better next time. However I still plan to publish my fanzine onto my website, onto SlideShare and even
onto issuu so others may read it.
