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B R I E F 0 1 _ C O N T E M P O R A R Y C U LT U R E THE BRIEF

CONTEXT:

THE BRIEF:

Contemporary

Create a zine/a collection of zine’s that best display contemporary culture in different cities using photography as your main source of visual research.

adjective: 2. Belonging to or occurring in the present: The tension and complexities of our contemporary society Culture noun

Capture friends, peers. Capture reality, fantasy, people with interesting stories, and people with great ideas. Something real.

Seize the chance to define the visual language of your world in 2013/14.

[mass noun] 1. The arts and other manifestations of human intellectual achievement regarded collectively: 20th century popular culture 2. The ideas, customs, and social behavior of a particular people or society Contemporary culture refers to the culture we currently live in. It includes the social, political and economical climate.

What people are engaging in today. Current trends, the media, fashion movements, youth culture, popular culture and music and entertainment all play a part in the montage that makes up contemporary culture.

PREPERATION/ RESEARCH: Look specifically into contemporary culture, draw from your own experience and have personal input in what you think the term should display. Look into a certain style of photography that you feel would best depict the style and feel of today’s culture. The subject can be anything that you feel, in some way, contributes to the overall image of contemporary culture. Look at various approaches and styles to zine’s and how this format could best help you display the topic in hand.

‘ WHAT STRANGE PHENOMENA WE FIND IN A GREAT CIT Y, ALL WE NEED DO IS STROLL ABOUT WITH OUR EYES O P E N . L I F E S WA R M S W I T H I N N O C E N T M O N S T E R S .’

B R I E F 0 1 _ C O N T E M P O R A R Y C U LT U R E CONCEPT/PRIMARY RESEARCH

IDEAS:

CONTACTING:

RESPONSES:

I began the project by looking at how I could gather as many images as possible and get a nice contrast of cities. My initial idea was to document cities around the UK and see the contrasts and similarities between the trends. However I wanted to take it further and get a wider range of imagery with a bigger contrast. My new idea was to contact various designers/photographers/individuals around the world and ask them to take part in the project. I would send them disposable cameras and they would capture the culture in their city, it would be broad in terms of what they could photograph, anything they felt contributed to the overall culture of the city.

I sent out an email to certain individuals after looking at photography work of thiers online asking if they would be able to take part, trying to get as many contrasting cities as possible.

I got a lot of great responses from various cities of people saying they would love to take part. Once I had contacted everyone I had decided to I sent out the disposable cameras with a copy of the brief and what time scale they would have to work to. The places I sent the cameras out to included:

Hi ___________, My name is Kathryn Brooks, Im currently in my final year studying BA (Hons) Graphic Design at Leeds College of Art. I have recently written a brief for part of my final practice that looks at ‘Contemporary Culture’ using photography as my main source of research/imagery.

Perth, Australia

The summary of the brief is:

Dubai, UAE

Create a zine/a collection of zine’s that best display contemporary culture in different cities using photography as your main source of visual research. The subject can be anything that you feel, in some way, contributes to the overall image of contemporary culture.

Macau, China

New York, USA Istanbul, Turkey Buenos Aires, Argentina Leeds, UK Dar Es Saalam, Tanzania London, UK Nantes, France

My idea was to send out disposable cameras to people in different cities for them to capture whatever they wanted over a certain time period. I am a big fan of your work and was wondering if I could possibly send you a camera. Obviously all expenses would be paid for and I would be really grateful if you would like to get involved. I do understand that this might not be possible as you’re very busy.

Thank you for you’re time. I look forward to hearing from you.

FEATURED CITIES:

ARGENTINA

WEST FRANCE

ENGLAND

TANZANIA

BUENOS AIRES

NANTES

LONDON

DAR ES SALAAM

B R I E F 0 1 _ C O N T E M P O R A R Y C U LT U R E RESEARCH

RESEARCH: After contacting individuals and getting an idea about what kind of cities would be featured I then started looking at zines for inspiration and layout ideas. At this stage I couldn’t decide what would be better for the project, to display each city in an individual zine, or to produce a more substantial publication that featured a number of cities split into different sections. This desicion would depend on the amount of photographs I recieved back, the quality of the images and printing methods.

PRIMARY: As well as looking online I thought it was important to look in various zine/publication stores in order to get a wider range of ideas for producing the zines. This was very beneficial as it allowed me to think about print production methods and binding etc.

SECONDARY:

I researched into layout and looked at various specialist online zine stores to get a general idea for layout and format. I looked specifically into photographic zines as this is the only type of visual that will be featured in my zine.

AUDIENCE : In terms of audience it would be quite specific to people interested in zines, photography and contemporary culture. This is why I found it very useful to visit places such as Village Bookstore in Leeds, to get a better understanding of the general audience.

B R I E F 0 1 _ C O N T E M P O R A R Y C U LT U R E PHOTOGRAPHY/DEVELOPMENT

DEVELOPING: IMAGES AND CONTENT So far I have recieved images back from five people and I am still awaiting the other cities. We have been in contact and due to other commitments they have not finished all the film on the camera yet.

With the images I have recieved I can start putting ideas together and looking at the type of layouts that would be most suitable. I have decided to split the zines up and have four cities feature in each one.

The first zine will include the following cities: Nantes, West France Buenos Aires, Argentina Dar es Saalam, Tanzania London, England

MY PHOTOGRAPHY: I wanted to incorporate some of my own photography into the zine so took part in the project and photographed London over a certain time period. I think having these four particular cities in this first zine will be a nice contrast visually as the cultures will differ hugely.

B R I E F 0 1 _ C O N T E M P O R A R Y C U LT U R E DEVELOPMENT/DESIGN DECISIONS

T Y P E , L AYO U T & F OR M AT

PRATA IMAGES:

DEVELOPMENT: I thought about layout and what would be most effective for displaying the images. I felt a lot of white space was needed as the images were strong enough to be displayed with nothing too distracting on the spread. I seperated the zine into forty pages, eight pages for each city plus an intro etc. The strongest images were placed on the page by themselves, others were grouped together based on colour, subject and arrangement.

Test prints and mock ups were made to scale to test the quality of the image when increased at a larger scale.

After researching and looking at various photographic zines I noticed black and white photography was something that was quite popular and also looked quite interesting depending on subject matter. I edited a few images to see whether it would work for the project and although some of them looked good I don’t feel it was allowing the audience to get a true feel of the culture within each city, this made it harder to see the contrast between cultures in different citites.

FORMAT:

Originally I imagined the the format size of the zine would be the standard A5 size that is popular amongst this style of publicatio, however I’d noticed that A4 worked quite well and as I was happy with the final images I’d recieved I felt the photographs would benefit from being on a larger scale, the only thing to consider with this was how large the image could be scaled without losing quality as all were taken on disposable cameras.

EXTENDING THE BRIEF : ONGOING FROM THIS POINT

As I was unable to get all the images in time I have decided to keep the project as on going as I am really pleased with the images I recieved back from the participating cities. I have already recieved the images back from Leeds, Istanbul and Dubai so they will make up the imagery in the next edition.

B R I E F 0 1 _ C O N T E M P O R A R Y C U LT U R E PRINTED ZINE

NEXT ISSUE:

Based on the photographs I have already recieved or that are still in the process of being taken, the next issue will feature Dubai, Leeds, New York and Istanbul.

VILLAGE BOOKSTORE, LEEDS:

I have recently looked into having the zine feature in the Village Bookstore in the Corn Exchange, Leeds. I think this would be the perfect place to distribute the series as they feature zines and publications of similar topics/imagery.