141 – Zine rationale

For Judy’s 141 Zine project, I chose to research and make a zine on constructivism and constructivist type. When I had taken art history before this art movement had piqued my interest. I took this project as an opportunity to expand my knowledge.

The first thing I did after receiving the instructions for this project and deciding on constructivism was research. Then, I created a mood board. There, I collected ideas and aesthetic inspiration from famous constructivist art pieces. Right off the bat, I knew that I not only wanted each page to look “constructivist” but that when laid out, the zine as a whole would look like a Rodchenko artwork. To do this, I made about 5 sketches in my sketchbook to elaborate certain layout ideas, before creating two drafts.

my sketches
My first draft (with mistakes! one half was upside down D:)
Success! Final draft completed

There, I included certain artistic elements I knew I wanted to include. Some of these elements were cutouts of the creators of the constructivist type and a Russian city in the 20s. I also intentionally only used black, white, and red because these were the primary colors of the constructivist artists. I also ended up including a megaphone, random geometric shapes, and lines.

I would give myself an 8/10 as I did a lot of preparation for this piece and spent a lot of time executing it. I would take points off due to the slightly chaotic layout of the entire zine and the “connotation” page, which is lacking in design.
I probably spent around 10 hours on this assignment, many spent on my fully-fledged drafts, and then my slow working time as I’ve been sick.

final zine!

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