SOPHIE
ROSE
BRAMPTON
I L L U S T R A T I O N & D E S I G N
F I N A L M A J O R P R O J E C T UNIVERSITY PROJECT - BABYGURL ZINE an online and physical copy zine for girls in their 20’s to raise awareness and educate about feminism
Kathleen Hanna was lead singer of American all-girl punk band Bikini Kill in the early 90’s and was a vital part of the ‘Riot Grrrl’ movement. She used her lyrics as a voice for young girls and women to stand up for themselves against the patriarchal society in their media at the time. The punk music scene was dominated by men and they wanted to do something about it. “I just think there’s this certain assumption that when a man tells the truth it’s the truth and as a woman, when I go to tell the truth, I feel like I have to negotiate the way I’ll be perceived.”
It could be argued that zines have been around since people could read, write and create, as zines are a way for people to self publish a publication of work. With the increasing accessibility to printing and photocopying in the 90’s, society saw an explosion of self published zines, especially within the alternative music and punk music scene in the United States. Riot Grrrls were activists, publishers and performers. They held regular meetings and national conferences similar to the feminist discussion and support groups of the 1960s and 1970s. These forums allowed women to meet and discuss music as well as their experiences of sexism, body image and identity. The zine was used as their primary tool of communication, as it was a cheap, easy yet creative way of getting their opinions out there.
BRAND REALISATION
Babygurl is an online and physical radical fashion zine for young feminist creatives. The zine has been created to give young women a platform to showcase their work, personal feelings and issues wtih today’s society. As an online zine and physical print publication twice a year, this will give creative feminists the opportunity to collaborate and contribute work and have their voices heard. For the opinionated, the subversive, the angry, the emotional, the weird, Babygurl is here to help voice your opinions. Featuring fashion, art and music, displayed through personal artistic projects throughout the zine, the brand aims to give women’s rights and female young creatives work more awareness.
Baby Gurl The name of a woman loved by a man in other words he uses it to compliment her or a woman in a relationship with a man in this case he natural name for her is this as substitution for her real name. “Damn babygurl, Urban
you looking fresh!” Dictionary Definition
In society we often infantilize women without realising. Calling a women ‘girl’ or ‘baby’ are all forms of this, and can make a women out to be less mature and childish. The textbook definition of a “girl” is a female-identified person under the age of 18. Babygurl is reclaiming this as a feminist word.
B R A N D
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Analysing a brand’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunties and threats via a SWOT is a useful marketing tool that can help to find faults in a business model and how to improve. This SWOT on Babygurl zine shows what it can be helpful or harmful to the brand in the micro and macro environment. Strengths also can determine the brands USP, such as strengths of Babygurl being a self published magazine and the showcasing of emerging female creatives. The brand onion is a tool used to describe a brands jouney and how they will engage their target consumer. The adjectives around the outer circle show how the brand will meet their aim, while the inner centre shows their aims overall.
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Changes to the UK pay gap Analysis finds gap of £5,732 or 24% in average annual salaries in UK, prompting calls for more to be done to tackle problem. - The Guardian, 2016 Chnages to working hoursDifference between the sexes in UK managers’ pay equates to nearly two hours of unpaid work a day by women - The Guardian
S O C I O L O G I C A L Young adults using online reading toolsResearchers found that 39% of the young people read every day on computers and screens, compared with 28% who read each day using printed materials New reading technology National Literacy Trust director Jonathan Douglas said: “Our research confirms that technology is playing a central role in young people’s literacy development and reading choice.
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Cuts to Arts Funding in the UK 2016Arts Council England (ACE) is having its budget cut by almost 30% in the government’s Spending Review - The Stage Consumers increasing online readership Last year, a study commissioned by lekiosk, and carried out by YouGov, found a third of the UK respondents read digital magazines, compared to the 53 per cent who indicated the same this year.- Lekiosk
P E S T A N A
T E C H N O L O G I C A L Advanced online technology/ online reading opportunities“While we welcome the positive impact which technology has on bringing further reading opportunities to young people, it’s crucial that reading in print is not cast aside.” The BBC.
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M I N D E D A D D I C T
Babygurl’s target consumer are feminist creatives in their twenties who are passionate about the advocacy of women’s rights on the ground of the equality of the sexes. They are opinionated, free spirited, artistic individuals who want their voices heard by society. The consumer is interested in both reading and visual arts, in print form and online, as they are online socialites, yet love the nostalgia around physical print zines. Commercial magazines are important to them for keeping up to date with fashion, art and music news, but zines are where they can explore their creativity and get more personal and honest writing pieces.
I M A G I N A T I V E B O L D IN SP IR ED
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The consumer values artistic talent, creative work and self-expression and believes strongly in empowering and liberating women. The consumer is opinionated and subversive and would like to change the way in which patriarchy controls women. They are courageous and honest and not afraid to voice their opinions if it could make a change.
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Annie, 20, is a young female creative from the UK. She identifies as feminist and supports local feminist zines and many female creatives. She is passionate about indie publishing and loves to collect hand made quirky zines and publications as she loves the honest and personal content. She uses her social media accounts to create new contacts and friendships online and is a self proclaimed internet addict. She keeps up to date with Fashion news in Dazed, iD, Love and Garage magazine, but also reads independant fashion magazines such as Bricks, Polyester and Crybaby zine to help influence her own personal style. Annie supports LGBT rights and attends Gay Pride in London every year and has strong interest in queer culture.
C O N S U M E R
L O V E S : Dazed Love Garage Crybaby Polyester iD Nylon Bricks
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Polyester zine is a trash and kitsch culture fashion based zine founded by Ione Gamble in 2015 based in London. Its aesthetic is mainly Fashion and photography based and features the work of various upcoming artists and illustrators mainly from the UK. This zine is one of Babygurl’s main competitors as it is a UK based zine and will feature mainly UK work, and also has similar brand identity and values such as “weird” unusual fashion being a strong feature, and also it’s emphasise on Fashion and art. Another strength of Polyester zine would be its online presence and how it uses their website and social media to promote the work of different writers, artists and updates on the brand itself. Babygurl zine aims to use this strength of Polyester’s in its own brand identity by keeping its online content and media up to date and interactive with its followers, as this is the main platform consumers will hear about the zine.
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L o c a t i o n : L o n d o n I s s u e s : 4 Available at: Alt Space Brooklyn, The ICA and South London Gallery, various worldwide stockists
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Babygurl zine’s main competitors in the zine world include a range of different self-published zines created for the same consumer segments, and more mainstream magazines with a strong brand identity and focus on fashion and art. Although Babygurl showcases the more unusual side of fashion, certain consumer groups will still be interested in the more mainstream magazines to catch up with fashion trends, forecasting and the more commercial fashion news. The brands that would be competitors to Babygurl zine in this category would be magazines such as Bricks magazine, Garage magazine, Love and iD. The brands direct competitors however, would be the likes of Crybaby zine, Rookie Mag, Sophomore mag, Vagine Mag, Wanda Magazine, The Editorial Magazine, Polyester zine and Shade zine. These zines are also self-published and hold similar beliefs to the Babygurl brand identity, such as gender parity and women’s free will to live without patriarchy. These zines use self-publication to display young creative’s work and voice, without any restrictions.
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The theme for Babygurl zine’s first issue is ‘Girls Online’. The zine will feature work around this theme to show how girls use social media and the online world, and to help bring awareness to inappropriate behaviour towards females online. Approximately 1 in 7 (13%) youth Internet users have received unwanted sexual solicitations in their lifetime. Babygurl aims to give girls a platform in which they can openly talk about their personal feelings towards these issues as a girl in the ever changing online world. This issue aims to feature personal, honest and truthful articles, to help build the brand identity as a respectible, honest brand that consumers can engage with and feel loyal to. The zine aims to bring a humorous and lighthearted approach, as if talking to the big sister you never had, but with a more serious meaning that the reader can understand. The zine features work from an all- female collective of creatives, with work of different subjects including photography, illustration and styling.
Babygurl zine aims to be the hilarious big sister you never had. To showcase other girls experiences and issues with society that we may not speak about in person. With a light hearted approach, we can realise the issues that girls can experience throughout womanhood with confidence, whilst recognising that something needs to be done. The zine aims to engage the consumer through their social media; with Instagram being their main digital platform.
ZINE CONTENT For the zine I have either sourced or created the content myself by collaborating with many other creatives with all different specialisms. This page shows a photoshoot I directed, collaborating with a commercial photographer, stylist and make up artist. The concept of the shoot focused on femininity and friendship, being able to mess around as a girl and feeling the freedom of self expression. The shoot features clothing from female brands that I feel work well with the Babygurl brand identity such as Olive&Frank, Phiney Pet and Dirty Disco. The three models we worked with on this were ones we had chosen who had unusual and a less commercial look about them, so that they could be believable friends.
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All imagery featured within the zine has been chosen by me as I feel it represents the meaning of Babygurl.. The imagery is often humorous, weird, quirky or made to make the viewer feel slightly uncomfortable with how full on and personal it is. From the brand instagram page I received interest from creatives wanting to contribute imagery towards the zine, so set up an email address for contributors to send their work. This is a great way to increase brand awareness for the zine as the main platform digitally is Instagram. I have featured photographers work in the Babygurl style by including my own illustration, backgrounds and patterns to make sure the brand identity remains the same throughout the whole zine.
topgirl.studio
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W E B S I T E
The brand website features all work included in the zine and more. Any work that does not make it to the zine will be featured online if still of good quality and fitting with the zine issue theme. This website has been designed on Adobe Muse, as the aesthetic can be more ‘DIY’ looking and gives a more personal feel. It also is easier to display gif images and the visual art from the zine. The website and social media will feature links to the Babygurl Bigcartel page to buy.
EDITORIAL FOR NOCTIS MAGAZINE
I L L U S T R A T I O N
This project involved working with a photographer to create this series of digital imagery from her own photography series that was published with Sticks and Stones Agency. The final series of photography were of a girly-girl aesthetic, featuring pastel colours and warm tones. As this was a fashion editorial I wanted to keep the high-end look with detailing on the clothing, to represent the quality and textures. The following four photos are the images from this shoot, followed by my four illustrations. These illustrations were created using a Wacom Intuos 3 Tablet on Photoshop.
W O R K
Working as part of the design team creating prints and graphics for accessories and online. # All designs created using Wacom graphics tablet and produced in Adobe Illustrator.
D E S I G N W o r k
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E x p e r i e n c e
Working in a small team as an intern working on different areas of the business such as design, social media, website, production and sales. Producing graphics for online and print.