Holly Cooke Ella Higham Lizzie Glanville Jade Gates
COCKEYED
Revealing a more genuine and raw aesthetic, which the commerciality of magazines such “Sometimes people are beautiful. Not in looks. Not in what they say. Just in what they are.” – as Vogue and even ID can sometimes prevent from prevailing, opening our readers eyes Markus Zusak to the freedom of beauty and how it is truly all around them. We have chosen to directly turn the opposite way to the rose tinted portrayal of beauty in the media. Our decision to create Beauty is something that is all around us, and is the topic that we were given to focus upon for an illustrative zine stemmed from our own views, those of our collaborators and the social the very exciting identity zine we were tasked with creating. norm of young people on social platforms of painting a confirmatory lifestyle to fit in with the pressures of the media and society. Cockeyed allows readers to escape from this, and be true Every society, within every culture, within every era has their own definitions, standards or to who they really are and what they really think. traditions to do with beauty. However, often these expectations are challenged by groups or individuals standing for a different kind of beauty or a natural reflection of it. The more we Our readers should feel involved when flicking through each page of fun, inspiring and exciting delved into this area the more intrigued we were by what we found, and the impacts of it within content in Cockeyed. The look and feel of our zine represents the content we share, pursuing the magazine and publishing sectors. The 21st century definitions of perfection and beauty, realistic views and opinions of the topic that each issue covers, the first being beauty. We and the way these are reflected in popular fashion or lifestyle magazines and social media are want our zine to have the edge that makes it stand out on a shelf, attracting those who have creating a beauty standard that is fake, photoshopped and unrealistic. These standards are grown tired of the repetitiveness of visuals in the image swamped culture we live in today. To something we wanted our zine to stand against as a place of reality, rawness and honesty yet achieve this, the binding throughout will be raw and untouched; much like our content. We with an artistic and fun twist. From this Cockeyed was born! A zine for the fabulous, fearless have opted to creatively overlay images and experiment with mixed media in order to obtain and fun, taking a light hearted but serious and truthful look at the issues going on in the a lighthearted outcome. This presents a varied take on serious issues such as social norms, world around us, showing off work by a whole host of artists, illustrators, photographers and standards and the big topics of the day in a visually engaging way. creatives on the topic that each issue is focused on. A starting point for the creation of Cockeyed was through the findings of our initial primary research - focus groups with children aged 4-14 years. As we all know, beauty is in the eye of the beholder and so with that we wanted to put it to the test, with images of some of the most iconic or beautiful women of today, we asked innocent children that were oblivious of these celebrities’ backgrounds to draw what they see. The feedback and results were astounding; signifying that the overpowering world of social media and the desire to conform to society’s idea of beauty is enraptured within the online world, and if we were to step back from it and put our mobiles away we would see beauty within the real world around us.
Each individual copy of Cockeyed is exclusive, with pages printed on different paper and unique hand draw illustrations from the team in each, reflecting the nature of beauty and how despite the current social norms, perfection is not reality or a true reflection of what beauty is. We want Cockeyed to be something that readers treasure and go back to time and time again for inspiration and a creative, bold outlook on life. We hope and strive towards Cockeyed becoming a zine that readers relate to and love and are eager for more of as they get a glimpse of reality within its pages. A stark contrast to the constructed and simulated realities of social media, the traditional press, fashion editorials and advertisements.
The key starting point that led to the creation of Cockeyed is the Antithesis of Beauty In order to find out ‘the who,’ ‘the what’, ‘the where’, ‘the why’ and ‘the when’ of the Antithesis movement and trend. The influence of this within Cockeyed will always be felt as we want of Beauty, we created a cartogram. After finding many references from books to journals, to maintain an honest, raw, unbiased and refreshing view on the world at all times. Although podcasts to exhibitions we began to delve deeper into our trend categories. We began only the first issue of Cockeyed will be themed around beauty, the strong, natural and true with focusing on ‘the who’, the groups and individuals who have truly stood up for what personality of this first and defining issue will always be continued. Due to the nature of the they believe in throughout history. Immediately we turned to the Suffragettes, women who Antithesis of Beauty trend and those who have championed it and the fields they are involved challenged the stereotypical ideals and expectations of beauty, femininity and womanhood of in or challenge, each issue of Cockeyed will discuss a real theme that is going on in the the time. They stood up for what they believed and wanted, subverting the expectations of the world. These will range from gender to politics, celebrity to travel, love to fear and anything day. Alongside the Suffragettes, power couple David and Angie Bowie as well as artist Jenny in between. The Cockeyed team have their own opinions on all of these topics and more, Saville have taken a stance in their beliefs throughout history. Whether that be subverting but we want to share everyone’s! We are eager to display and explore unbiased and honest stereotypical gender roles for the Bowie couple or Saville capturing the raw truth of the human views of the world with our readers by showcasing what they have to say within the pages we body through her art; they both challenge the concept of what beauty really is. For each print. Whether a photographer has a fear of spiders, an illustrator hates David Cameron or a part of the cartogram such as, ‘Trend Drivers’ and ‘Trend Impacts’ we split the information creative seems to spend half their time on planes or trains; if it fits in with the topic of the issue into relevant categories; fashion, retail, interior and public figures. This allowed us to see we want to share what they think and feel. No holds barred, no restrictions, no limits. how broad of an impact the Antithesis of Beauty trend and movement has had upon society. Ultimately our cartogram allowed us to have a clear insight into where our trend has derived We see the future of Cockeyed being extraordinarily bright, and of course filled with lots and from and most importantly the potential future of what could be. lots of good honest fun. The response we have had, initially from our collaborators and then from those on social media or that we know in real life has been fantastic. It seems that other Our numerous interviews with our collaborators solidified what we had hoped; that there is a people are loving what Cockeyed is all about and the things it has got to say. gap in the market for an illustrative zine offering the chance to upcoming artists to showcase their work as well as expressing their views around a certain topic for each issue. Cockeyed has wings and we’re ready to see them fly. We chose to use the qualitative technique of interviewing as it allowed us to investigate into the concept of beauty thoroughly by asking a range of questions in order to find out our target consumers view on where beauty stands within magazine and publishing sectors today. It also allowed us to ask sensitive questions around the topic of how current fashion magazines make them feel in regard to fake and photoshopped imagery that we perhaps may have not got an answer to if it were to be discussed within a focus group. The current publishing market is full of glossy pages of unrealistic and simulated beauty. This is then force fed to us each and every day, everyone can become victim to this from a quick flick through a magazine to sitting down for a nice quiet read, you just don’t know when these adverts will attack. These deceptive advertisements filled with the work of photoshop masters are swamping the pages of our magazines and the industry has created a fake reality that consumers are devouring daily. It’s no surprise that we are not used to anything less than this, society has become blind to a real and raw celebration of fashion and beauty. The idea of Cockeyed allows an illustrative view on beauty – it explores the idea of reality created from our consumers views. Our big idea is to celebrate beauty through creative artistic expression. The human form is beautiful, and Cockeyed believes it should be natural, raw and admired just how it is. As a society which is constantly bombarded with images we have become accustomed to particular norms and values. We expect to see blemish free, toned skin gracing the pages of the magazines we buy or endorsing the products we use, yet we are unaware of the implications such standards impose. A backlash against such norms has surfaced with a more genuine and transparent view becoming increasingly popular; evident particularly on social platforms where recently hashtags such as #SocialMediaIsNotRealLife #antisocial and #nofilter have brought to light a rejection of the constructed image. Baudrillard said ‘It is now a principle of simulation, and not of reality, that regulates all of social life.’ Suggesting that we have become so accustomed to these pruned and primped images that we have brought into a fake reality leading to our lives being based on simulations. We found through researching this notion of the rejection of the constructed image that we wanted to explore how we are led to becoming blind from the true imperfections of beauty and developed our concept into Cockeyed. We as a team have closely curated specific artists that we feel can represent Cockeyed, and most importantly, their own work. Our illustrative zine has targeted a range of people; students, professionals, and general art lovers to be a part of our new creation that could also open doors for them. The art that we have curated will explore throughout the beauty issue the topic in a captivating and visually beautiful way.