Publication one, two and three crit

This afternoon was an opportunity to gather our idea for all three of the publications and decide which one would be in our best interests to go forward with. I went into the crit with three fairly clearly laid out ideas, however the third publication was of course more more on paper than a physical thing due to our limited time on it as of yet.

The first publication was of course the fanzine which hasn't really progressed since I printed it. I didn't really want to progress with this one as despite it being a very nice publication it felt like it would need a lot of refining to take further due to the eclectic nature of the content. Oh course as this was the same zine that many people in the crit had it sort of got moved on from very quickly, although it was pointed out that some spreads did have a lot of potential and others would have to be removed due to lack of aesthetic relevance. Progressions such as using different printing techniques or broadening the paper stock to give more variation are easy developments to make, however progressing with this publication wouldn't feel like progress with the other two now in full swing.

In terms of my second publication I had a 10 page sample to show printed on tracing paper which did received some compliments for the theme of haze and its aesthetics. However once again it was fairly hard to see where the publication would go contextually as most of the suggestions for developments involved screen or risograph printing.

For the third publication I had just gathered together a few edited posters from circa 1950s. The reception for these was undoubtably better than the other two publication due to the contextual angle and the research work that it would present for me to do. This feels like a relief as its an opportunity to settle back into the process that i'm used to of researching, experimenting, making. That being said though we only have a week from now to get it all finished so I'm going to have to make sure I'm hot off the mark and manage my time well. Ben gave me a number of good avenues to research. An Alan Curtis documentary called 'Century of the self' about Edward Bernays and psychology within advertising throughout the 20th century. I was also unsure about how to display the posters but it was suggested that I reverse bind them along the long edge and perforate each side so that a second poster can be released underneath. It was also decided that the mock ups I had made working around socials aspects of race and gender were more effective than factual or information based stuff, something to bear in mind over the next week. The suggestion of incorporating some kind of censorship stickers into the publication also were a popular choice but this might take too long so I need to see how I'm getting on.