What Is The Problem?

To what extent will the briefs allow me to meet my criteria for success within the module?

I think the briefs will allow me to meet my criteria for success within the module by helping me develop my digital skills and web based image making. All briefs include some kind of digital aspect and I know this is a weaker area of mine so I think they'd push me to develop my working methods. 

To what extent will the briefs benefit me with regards to entering competition briefs?

All briefs would push me to work in a commercial manner and would give me the experience of working with a client/brief that wasn't set within uni. It would also help me push my practice forward in a more professional manner and gain experience in dealing with different kinds of briefs.


Identify any technical or skills challenges that may need addressing

The National Autistic Society must be a video which is an area I am not confident or knowledgable in. The Desperados brief involves event organisation and management is something I'm also not skilled in, the brief is also unclear of exactly what it wants from us

Fur For Animals is a web based campaign, I feel like I'd possibly be okay with doing some of this on my own but I'd probably need to look into collaboration for this and the other two briefs

Fur for Animals - Fight the Fur Trade

What problems are identified by the brief? 

- There's no such thing as ethical fur

- Over 100 million animals every year are killed in the name of fashion 

- New demand for high-end, high street and fur trimmed garments has emerged

- Largely driven by consumers in Russia and China 

- Issue is far-removed from the audiences lives

What is the brief asking you to do about it/them?

- Convince people that this is still and issue

- Show people that there's no such thing as ethical fur

- Engage the audience and show them what they can do to make a difference

What is the brief trying to achieve? 

- For those that still buy or considering buying fur garments, the brief is trying to persuade them to change their minds

- Raise awareness of how this is still an issue 

Who will benefit?

- Respect For Animals charity 

- Animals 

What is the message? 

- That the fur trade is still an ongoing issue

- That animals unnecessarily suffer and are killed for the fur trade 

- New demand for fur products has emerged

Who is the audience?

- Those who have bought or are considering buying garments made with real fur 

- The wider public who don't wear fur - acts as a reminder 

How will the message be delivered? 

- Social platforms

- Video format 

- Digital campaign 

- Worldwide

Can you foresee any problems in responding to the brief?

- Not a lot of experience in producing work for a digital platform/digital campaign - would be a good opportunity to collaborate 

- What is an integrated campaign??

- Role reversal within this subject area is common, for examples animals wearing human skin etc, would need to make sure I wasn't just creating something that'd already been done. 

- What does the term 'online content' cover? Do I get free range with it as long as it works well in web format. Can it be a video? An ad? An image? Interactive? 

Final Zine and Feedback

I was pretty pleased with how my zine turned out, it was a really quick task which meant I couldn't spend time fussing over things that weren't necessarily 'perfect' and gave me a chance to kind of embrace the DIY attitude of zine making.

Using the photocopier was fun, I can see how it could be really useful for produce small publications at a large quantity and i also really enjoyed inverting images to see how they would turn out, sometimes they looked better than my originals!I was happiest with my double spread bird page in the middle of the book and this was reflected in my feedback, people mostly commented on how they liked that page in terms of aesthetics. I was also told that maybe I should try and embrace minimalism and that less is sometimes more, I completely agree with this but I personally enjoy working in more detail but understand that i need to learn how to balance this out and not over-crowd my images. I was also told I'd included too much text/quotes and I think this is true as well. I would much rather have produced more images for this task but we only had a few days for this brief and I'm learning how to juggle the course and a part-time job as well. That being said, I'm really interested in making more zines in this way and also expanding my work and research on Margaret Atwood. 

Zine Ideas and Development

To start, I was really excited about making a zine, I love making books and publications and I'm really into the whole DIY aspect of zine making and their history of spreading ideas, opinions and art. 

I did struggle getting started on this though, I tend to overthink and struggle to reach decisions on which ideas to go with, or what I should draw or include in my work but the fact that we only had a couple of days to complete this helped spur me on a little bit. 

I ended up just drawing and playing with ideas/thoughts that I'd already had. I haven't been able to do much reading over the summer so haven't read a lot of Atwoods' work so sometimes I feel like I'm at a bit of a loss for material to work with and as though I'm running behind but I tried to do the best with what I had! 

I ended up just going with a pretty simple set up, illustrating ideas I already had, including some information about the author and some quotes and excerpts from her writing. We were told to keep it simple so that's what I'm trying to do rather than fretting over every single detail! hopefully this will come out looking ok!