Weekend Zine Sprint
Spending the Weekend to Prototype the Campaign
After we decided on the components of the campaign, it was time for us to make the prototypes. We wanted a decent quality of physical components by the silent crit on Monday, so we dedicated the weekend to an intense design sprint to create the zine and supplementary materials to present.
Friday: Setup Guideline
Zine Outline
On Friday, we sat down and revisited our old table of contents in which we organized our research. While the direction/voice of our zine changed, we still though the table of contents summarized our research well and also outlined the topics we wanted to include as section in the new zine.
We figured that in the first draft of table of content were mainly just large jumble of research facts we pasted in from multiple research docs in our drive. We had to reassemble sections in an order that made sense and weave together quotes from research with transitions. In addition, we would have to include our own message. However, for today, we decided to just reorganize what we already have — the quotes from research — and assign sections to each team member to rewrite.
Sections:
- Instagram’s mission has changed over time
- Instagram is the worst social media for mental health and wellbeing
- Social Comparison + Impact on Well-being
- Ending: For you or for your followers? / Author’s Note
Zine Grids
We’ve talked a bit about grids before, but haven’t gotten to actually making them for the InDesign file. We focused on a 3 x 3 modular grid to emulate that of Instagram profiles. Going off of this, we also decided that all pictures to be used in the zine have to squares to achieve the same effect. As for the body text, it has to be one column with 1–2 1/2 grid in width.
Tiffany set up a few different layout examples on the grid as a template to be distributed for the rest of the team. Until tomorrow, we will play around with our assigned content (hopefully fully revised by then)in layout.
Visual Style
Lastly, we set up the visual style guide for the zine and other components. We came to a decision pretty quickly upon looking around our Pinterest mood board that it would be some mix of photos, digital text, and handwriting.
We thought this was a good representation of our concept in the two-faced nature of Instagram (highlights vs. what they’re actually going through). After laying down the body text (main copy from outline), the handwriting would be used to callout important aspects or quotes from interviews. We could also underline or circle parts of the body copy to point to major concepts.
We chose Optima as our body copy typeface because we liked the readability along with its stroke. The color palette, was naturally chosen to be the Instagram gradient colors.
Until tomorrow, each of us will rewrite the assigned section to flow better as a comprehensive narrative and do more research as needed.
Saturday: Content & Design
We finalized the content, the body copy that needed to be in the zine. We filtered through our original table of contents to fit a zine that is smaller and more condensed. We also added more of our own opinion to connect the facts back to what we wanted to say.
Our revision included the main points we wanted to communicate, including several quotes and call outs. Our format became spreads that included one or two body copies, one or two call outs, and images in the background related to the copy. Some details about the visual style include: making all images black and white and putting it behind a yellow multiply, justified text for the body copy, quotes with bold text, and handwritten pieces varied throughout the spread. And we had several big quote pages with full on text with varied stroke and fills over a colored background that came from Instagram’s colors.
Sunday: Crit & Craft
We all came in with final spreads for Sunday crit, to be prepared for the Monday crit. Here are some of the spreads.
In addition, we worked on creating a ‘pledge’ which people will sign to participate in our campaign. We discussed what kind of form it should take, whether it should be included in the zine, or a separate page in which you can rip out the signature part etc… in the end we decided that it would exist separately within the kit we give out so that receivers won’t have to flip through the book in a hurry to sign the form. Upon signing the pledge, people would put it inside a box making it a good metric for us to measure how many people participated and giving the impression of permanence/relevance. Those who pledged would then post their real story using our hashtag.
While we couldn’t get sticker papers, we mocked up Instagram-related stickers that would be included in the kit. These stickers were to promote the campaign while also encouraging others to participate by either the kit receivers giving them out to peers or putting them on their laptops etc… to be seen in public. The stickers contained positive message about loving yourself, not being defined by superficial metrics, being true, etc…
Lastly, we included a mini-zine of some of the quotes from our interviews. It would be interesting for out audience to see how others define their relationship/use of Instagram but also takeaway the surprising amount of influence it has over people’s lives, either good or bad,and how much we let it rule over the way we behave.
In the final setup, we put all the elements together along with a 3D model of what the campaign would look like.
Another idea we thought of last minute was how the zine could be passed from just the receiver to a bigger audience. Perhaps after the receiver is done reading the zine, she/he could leave it in a public space for another person to pick up and read (look above for i.e. Dobra Tea bookshelf). If not, we could put it in such public places after (consulting with them) ourselves to spread the campaign.
