The above is the PDF version of my handmade zine FAT, which I scanned, cleaned up on Photoshop, then used Indesign to turn into a PDF.
zine
BPD & ME
Personal ProjectsI finally dug up the file for the BPD Zine I made last year and saved it as a digital version. If you have recently been diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) also known as Emotionally Unstable Personality Disorder (EUPD), know someone who has been, or would just like to learn more about the disorder please feel free to read and share this with anyone else who might need it. Bear in mind that no one’s experiences with BPD will be identical and this is based on my own personal experiences.
Collages (Prep for Zine Making Workshop)
Residency at The Playground, WorkshopsI’m running a drop in zine making workshop for young people as part of my artist residency at The Playground next week, so I bought some newspapers last week to make an example zine to show at the workshop. This is the result so far! These collages will be made into the zine (hopefully).
The above collage is a poem called “What Happens Next?”
This collage is called “Jacob Memes Mogg, or We Won’t Take This Lying Down”
This one is called “Cheeky Homophobia”
And finally the “Nigel Farage Poem” (not the most creative title but it does what it says on the tin!)
I think given the current political climate this is an apt piece of work, and the zine will possibly called “Dangerous Men” or something along those lines, because although these men are often the subject of memes and jokes they are in fact very dangerous men. I’m actually really pleased with these so far, it was my first chance to be properly creative in a few weeks and I knocked these out in a couple of hours! Life is stressful after uni, but it’s moments of creativity like this that make it worth it.
BPD & Me Zine
Exhibitions, Personal Projects, Photographs, UNIT 2As part of an exhibition I organised for my society, The Mentally Chill Society, I decided to make a short zine exploring my experiences with Borderline Personality Disorder, which I was diagnosed with around two years ago.
I started by writing down the NHS definition, the causes, and the four main criteria for diagnosis, and began thinking about how they affected me, personally. I then made some notes, shown below, of objects/imagery I might want to use. It was at this point I decided I wanted to create the initial imagery for the zine on the photocopier, as I wanted it to look and feel handmade and erratic.
I spent about a day in the learning zone, playing around with the various objects I collected from my room on the photocopier, including- fast food packaging, smoking apparatus, my old Barbie doll, condoms, anti depressant packaging, coloured paper, patterned paper bags, doll parts, and photos of myself. These were all things I felt represented different aspects of both myself and more specifically my personality disorder. Once I had the imagery I then used various pens and crayons to create the text and some other parts (such as the mood wheel) which I then added. The original double page spreads were A3 (so once folded it would have been A4) as I prefer to work larger then scale down my work in the next stage, for better quality. The finished zine was printed on A4 paper and folded down to A5.
The next stage was to scan the pages so that I could edit them digitally on Indesign for printing, as shown below.
I printed a proof in black and white first to check that everything was in the right place, before moving on to printing in colour.
I then hand bound the book, using waxed thread for book binding, a bone folder, needle and awl, to make the holes.
The photos above are of the Zine in the MENTAL exhibition that I organised, and set up, which I will post about shortly.
