Process - Uncovered - None of this is REAL

Our project started with taking various photographs relating to different topics. These images should respond to Ad Archive by Hali Olalemi.

Running through London I got most inspired by provocative, sexual and political artworks.

During the first session I learned that a zine is a small version of a mega(zine) and its usage.

I also got to know how to manipulate one theme to another by using my own photographs that based on Ad Archive.

I choose to manipulate politics and convey it to the theme sexuality.

I criticized the politicians for not focusing on important solutions that would help the country but getting more and more involved in sexual scandals. That is also the reason why people do not trust their head of states anymore.

Furthermore I wanted to communicate that people draw more attention to sexuality and provocation than to politicians that have the power to change the bad into the good.

As I went further through the process I focused a lot on politics instead of manipulating the origin meaning.

As I got feedback I realized that I should not include so many political links in my work such as faces.

My artwork got very provocative and reversed the sexuality theme which I was planning on expressing with the political topic that should be manipulated.

In addition my collectives suggested me to include more details in my collages and to start thinking about the layout to express my theme better.

However, the strength in this pictures are the powerful critics.

After those collages I brainstormed my ideas again and came up with two different images that show the aspect of sexuality better. I looked at the layout by expressing sexuality with the woman's shape.

On Tuesday we looked in collectives at our outcomes.

Basing on the critic to add details, think about the layout and focus more on sexuality I developed my Ideas further.

I started looking at the theme politic in a different way.
Nowadays advertising agencies are using sexual attraction to sell their clients products for instance by using a bikini model eating a burger.

The head of states have the power to set rules and forbid those provocative advertisements but instead they are involved in sexual scandals and do not take their role as an ideal seriously such as Silvio Berlusconi.

Before I started with my own collages I looked at different designers who used various techniques to get inspired and find out what technique, layout and format I want to use in my own collages later on.

Patrick Waugh uses simplicity and reputation as well as a mixture of black and white to express situations. When I look at his work I like the layers that he uses and the different formats.

In contrast are Beni Bischof's provocative collages that show a mixture of black and white photographs combined with colourful details which is fascinating. It conveys a decent meaning of sexuality.

Because the previous designers did not use a lot of layers and different images I looked at Linder Sterling's and Martha Rosler's work afterwards.

Both of the artists combine various images with different meanings to one final collage that expresses something totally different. For example putting a chic dressed woman next to a dead body.

I like the details that they include because it forces me to look at those images longer to be able to discover all hidden specifics.

Dennis Busch is the designer that I am going to respond to because I love the way as he expresses elegance by using different body shape which harmonize together and create a great layout.
The sexuality which is expressed in his works also refers to my theme. 
Furthermore I like the transformation in his collages and how he put single images together to create one big collage.

The last designer I had a look at is called Jindrich Stysky who created provocative collages that criticizes  politics and especially war. I just wanted to see how he manipulates politics and uses sexuality in his collages which is exactly what I was planning of doing.

After I looked at all of those artists I decided to create collages which include details, layers and colourful as well as black and white images. I also decided to continue creating handcrafted images which convey elegance that response to Dennis Busch collages. 

After I had an idea about the design and layout I gathered some knowledge about politicians before I started my collages.

Looking at the head of states which have the power to set rules for sexual advertising I did some research about the most influential politicians in the world (Business Insider UK). After that I found out about their involvements in sexual scandals.

Because some of them were not confronted with those scandals and the fact that they are not as popular in our country as others I wanted to focus on Trump, Merkel, Putin and some other politicians in my collages.

One of the most important things to think of while creating a zine is the customer.

The audience I am talking to are mostly modern male people who are about 25 years old, interested in sports, politics and successful in their jobs. Furthermore they are independent and like fast food but also the modern lifestyle.

To have photographs which I could use for my designs and that would express those ideas I looked at magazines and advertisements.

My first collage criticizes the way of using sexual attraction to sell cars. The question "Why are you actually spending your money?" underlines the fact that people especially men do not always think radically with their brain but get influenced easily by woman's attraction.

The way I included words like Trump shows that politicians are more involved in those advertisements instead of preventing them.

After that I created a food advertising collage that exaggerate the issue of selling food using "hot" girls. 

I like the layout of this image because it expresses sexuality using the woman's shape that combines two collages to one.

Because my audience is interested in sports and fashion I created a collage that shows male models having power over politicians. The roles of these people are reversed.
The modern society is also tolerant which is shown in the image of two men kissing.

The next collage conveys sports. It originally comes from a food advertisement. In this image is the sexuality more powerful that the head of states.

After I created some handcrafted collages I looked at another designer which inspired me as I went further. The designer is called "The Daily Splice". I love his layouts and the elegance that he conveys with his collages. He also broaches the issue of various topics in his artworks.

Then I started creating more collages. This time I did not handcrafted them but instead used my computer to design digital collages.

I want to have a mix of handcrafted and digital collages because both kinds attract my audience.

Thinking about the interests of my clients I created collages which advertising coffee in a sexual way. My customer are hard working person so they basically live from drinking coffee to stay concentrated.

I used a traditional tea cup which I modernized by adding a woman's face who is eating a strawberry. It seems like the strawberry gets sprinkled with the coffee milk. That conveys a dirty but also elegant impression. To bring the political issue up I added a squared sign which says "secure living". This quote comes from the German Chancellor Angela Merkel. The sign contrasts to the rest of the image because it is angled. That leads to the actual function of politicians namely setting rules. 

The layout of my next design conveys a feeling of elegance which refers to the daily splice and Dennis Busch.

The woman's hair reminds on trumps blond hair and expresses that he is not somebody who would stand next to that person to help her but instead he gets directly involved in scandals.

The phrase "Klar for Stabilität" means "Clear for Stability" and refers to Angela Merkel.

The next image conveys the feeling of sexuality capturing the whole world. The layout and images expresses dynamic which is one main topic in todays world.

On one of his ski is written "secure living" which is a contrast to the sport ski and also to the lips which seems to have power over everything.

The second collage shows a man skiing down on a woman's dress. The woman's shape is curvy and her position is elegant. In the background is seen a mountain skyline.

There is also a sign which says "stronger together" that refers to Angela Merkel. 

Because the woman is bigger than the background it seems that she is powerful and that the collage does not show the whole image.

Additionally, I created another collage which broach the issue of burgers. The words "just around the corner" are a sexual hint as well as the phrase "passion is a hunger only a big one can satisfy".

After that I designed more handcrafted collages because I love the fact that the outcome always turns out to be completely different from the original idea. However, the meaning and the expression that it should convey stays.

I looked at the topic fashion for men again.
Because I found an advertising poster which shows a running man as well as a quote from Donald Trump which says "I have seen women manipulate men with just a twitch of their eye -  or perhaps another body part" I thought about a collage which would show the power and influence of women and bases on Dennis Busch work.

I used women's legs and arms that comprise the man.

To show that politicians also get lost in here I used the famous "Angela rhomb" which is hidden behind legs and arms.

I like the elegance and details in my outcome. Additionally I think that my layout shows how men continuing their lives (walking) while getting influenced by the attraction of women.

To look at the theme sports and working out I designed two further handcrafted collages.

The party CDU which is represented by Merkel is used as the bottle of water from which the woman is drinking.

The other collage that conveys sports shows a man doing push ups and a woman that is holding his head as well as woman legs. It seems like the boy is under the power of woman. The quote "They don't call me Tyrannosaurus Sex for nothing" refers to a head of states.

The collage conveys the feeling that the sexuality causes the man to work.

Then I looked at the kind of living that my customer would have. Referring to that I designed a handcrafted collage in black and white which includes nude female legs and a body. All have a elegant shape. I added the word Trump on the sofa and Vladimir Putin so that would show the involvements of him in sexual topics.

I like the elegance and how I used the layout to change the original meaning of a plain grey sofa into an elegant piece of art.

The last handmade collage that I created shows a woman which is covered behind red lips. Her chest is hidden by the European flag and she is standing on a sign which says "for Germany".

Because I liked her elegant body shape I did not want to change that much but I wanted to create  the impression that the head of states have a lot to say but instead of using it to improve Europe they are influenced by sexual attraction and get involved in scandals.

The mouth shows the power of politicians while the European flag is expressing the decisions they make facing Europe.

My zine also needs a front and back cover. This cover should talk to the modern society. It should include Sexuality and Politicians to show my themes. Additionally I thought of writing the main sections on the front cover.

To express those ideas I created a front page that shows a mouth, legs as well as the "Merkel Diamond" and Trumps eye. To make it look modern and unisex I added squares and triangles in grey.

I experimented with the colours to make my zine striking.

Furthermore I designed the back which should be harmonizing with the front cover.

To come up with my final design I thought about the layout, arrangements, font style and pagination.

The front cover should include all sections which I am going to bring up in Uncovered. The short phrases should catch the readers attention by using weasel words such as "cups".

The first sections express food, the next ones convey the interests of my customers and the last sections cover sports and fitness.

My zine also should communicate the critic of making misuse of human's sexual desire in advertisements to sell products. Therefore I wanted to add short texts which include a lot of questions to let the reader start thinking.

To be able to optimize my first ideas I printed out the craft.

I realized that the font style which I chose did not look good combined with the images. I also needed to add the pagination.

However, I liked the layout and that the zine looks clean and organized instead of crammed and unclear because in this way the reader focuses more on the collages.

Afterwards I looked at the technique that show how to create a zine. Regarding to that I used InDesign to arrange my papers so my zine turns out the right way.

The second craft looked already better. 

The font reminds more on a magazine but is still modern, unique and readable.
I wrote improvement suggestions in it so I would be able to transfer them into the InDesign document.

A main issue were the sizes of my collages which were too small. I also want to have the pagination in the upper corners instead of having them on the bottom.

Because I want to get people look closer at my collages which are including a lot of hidden details I flipped one image that shows a quote horizontally. That causes the reader to look closer at the image to be able to read the text which is not obvious anymore.

After that I printed out my booklet zine Uncovered.

During class I found out that the zine should be less a magazine but more a designer work which focus rather on the layout and the collages instead of storytelling texts. Furthermore it should not be made out of two A3 sized papers stapled together but instead of one A3 paper which is printed on both sides and can be flipped.

To transfer these aspects I looked at my zine again and focused more on the layout.

My first idea was to have a front and back cover so it would still look like a small magazine from the outside.

Therefore I experimented with different layouts using collages in various sizes.

Some of those collages look nicer if they are bigger than others. This bases on the fact that some include more details and other bring up a very elegant impression.

After I printed some samples I thought that the front and back cover would steel the place of my actual collages and therefore I could rather use one collages that conveys my theme as the cover.

Furthermore I did not include any texts that were communicating my critic from my earlier booklet anymore. Because this was an aspect that made my zine unique I thought about involving some key questions in my designer zine as well. The fact that the font did not harmonize with my designs in the earlier outcomes forced me to rethink about it again.

This time I used a font which harmonizes with the font style in my collages and edit it so my collage and my texts would be one image.

Referring to the fact of having no cover but a collage I chose to use the car image.

The front should include the name of the zine and the back the question "What is the reason you are buying this car" so that the reader would still keep thinking about the message of my zine after reading it.

The first two pages should still show the burger collage and include some texts. To highlight key words I chose a bigger font for important words.

The reason for using this collage and those words in the beginning is that people would recognize the misuse of human's sexual desire in advertisements straight from the start.

Because the coffee image expresses elegance and sexual innocence I spread it out and placed it over the other half of the front page.

During designing the front page I also payed attention to the layout when the A3 paper is not folded.

Looking at the back page I decided to place the football collage as the only image on it because it includes a lot of details which should not get lost in all the other collages.

Looking at the finished zine I decided to experiment with the background colour because it does not look finished yet. To highlight the collages I thought about a black background which also should look elegant and underline the sexuality issue.

Furthermore I decided to create a kind of white shadow which would have the same shape as the collage and attracts the reader of the zine.

Because the American collage had not the best quality and I wanted to have a back and front cover, I decided to change the layout again.

To evaluate my whole process I think that I have done a lot of research and got inspired by various of designers.

Looking at my single zine I like the details in my collages as well as the layout. 

In my opinion expresses my outcome exactly what I wanted to criticize, namely the sexual misuse in advertisements and the fact that the head of states are not setting any limits preventing those problems.

Because I had struggle with my theme and how I am going to express my critic in collages I learned to solve problems by researching and concentrating on my point of view instead of giving up and changing my theme.

I furthermore learned form the critic that I have to focus more on my audience which I tried to implement in my further process.

Another critic on my work is that I have not optimizes my collages a lot and that I should experiment with adding details, scanning, illustrating and developing my collages more.

I tried to take the critic and implement it in the process when I layout and arranged my final zine.

I am also going to focus on that issue in my next project.