Thanks to Nan for making the digital version of our publication ♡

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When I say I have the best team for project ‘Launch’, I mean it! The publications look amazing! Everyone worked so hard on everything and it shows.

I think I forgot to post this earlier, but we decided to have the introduction text be somehow related to the first image in each section. In my case, the first and last sentences of my written piece are bigger in order to relate to the use bold text boxes in my images above and below the illustrations. In the cases of the others, the writing might take the form of a silhouette in the image or something akin to that.

Either way, I feel really proud of our work. I think we worked really well together and managed to make our publications in a really impressive amount of time. So, yaaaaay ^ω^ ♡

Today I was meant to meet Tong and Sheng at the paper shop, but I overslept after a bad night of sleep, so the guys went to the shop by themselves. I instead started working on revising the others’ texts for my duty as copywriter. 

I suddenly realised just how many more jobs exist for a word person asides from just writing. I also had this vivid image of me as a teacher marking students’ essays and it creeped me out a bit, but didn’t feel too bad either.

In the meantime, Neveah and Pody worked on the layout for the publication and Tong got the capture studio booked for shots for the publication and documentation of our mock-ups.

The pictures look amazing and are all courtesy of Tong ♡

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A day like any other for my solitary soul

but maybe just a tad bit sadder

Not because of this celebration

this capitalist commodification

of that which we purely call love

but All About Luv

still a capitalist manifestation

of those who I love most of all.

During the workshop in the morning we already had a mock-up of our publication format to show to the tutors. That way we got useful feedback about the experience of handling our publication from others. Kyung Hwa pointed out that we should consider what the size difference might imply in terms of importance we give to each topic. We decided to have each page be the same size content wise, even in the larger pages. That will not only give everyone and everyone’s topics and projects an equal weight, it also continues our theme of ‘the self’ within its surroundings, as ‘the self’ is represented in the smaller format and the surrounding is the added margins of the pages. It also makes it easier to create a layout, as essentially the format stays the same for each page.

She also asked us to consider the transition between sections, whether there is an abrupt transition or if there is a flow between the pages. It does put into question how to end each section, so the ending doesn’t feel too abrupt, but simultaneously gives enough space, a moment of pause for the reader, to continue on to the next section.

Surabhi suggested that perhaps the previous size can leave an imprint on the next one in the form of negative space surrounded by a colour or text that flows over onto the next page. We wanted to put a simple symbol that sums up our topic on the covers of each section, but we are now thinking of having a question that fits our topics flow over from the previous section onto the next. That way we can even better convey the intent of our publication and give the reader a frame to think about both the previous section and the next.

Kyung Hwa also recommended we check out a paper shop in London, John Purcell Paper, to see and feel the paper we could use for our publication. We have thus planned to go there on Monday morning.

We also briefly discussed the typeface we will use and Pody will provide us with printed examples of different typefaces we can consider fully on Monday.

We also had an ADAS tutorial with Nathan about our editorial. It was super helpful, as while I might get what I mean when writing a sentence, it might not be clear to a general reader. My use of long sentences does not help either, so with Nathan’s help we managed to rework the text to clarify our main goal with the publication and the ideas we want to present. Especially as I wrote ‘we’ and ‘self’ and ‘it’ a lot, the text got real confusing real fast as you always ended up questioning who the ‘we’ refers to and stuff. But in the end we got a piece that we are all happy and satisfied with that can prompt us to write our own pieces of text for the publication. It will possibly end up being tweaked a bit, but it’s a good starting point.

Either way, today was a long and eventful and tiring day. Thank you to this lovely group of people that I spent today with (thank you to Sheng for the chocolate ♡) I wish everyone a happy V-day. Eat chocolate. Treat yourself. Treat your loved one(s). Go out. Stay in. Make it as casual or special as you wish. Mine will be spent alone around many people, in college, in lightsaber class, at home, and on Whatsapp ♡ ♡ ♡

Today we discussed the writing for the editorial. As we want the writings to match the theme and concept of our publication, we felt that it also had to be reflected in the writing. We worked out more exactly how each of our works relate to the core concept. The others liked my writing, so that made me feel relieved as it indicated I was on the right track for the writing of the editorial. I shall edit what I already have and add a bit more to it, as currently it is still lacking an end paragraph tying the text together.

During the ADAS tutorial Aleya stressed how the personal writing needs to be a response to the editorial and I think that is what was missing in my personal piece draft, as while it did discuss the place of my works within the concept of the publication, it felt very isolated. Furthermore the tone of the pretty serious and philosophical editorial clashed with the casual writings of my piece. So we also discussed the tone of our writings and the style. We are aiming to have a draft of our pieces completed by Monday, giving me enough time to review the pieces and make sure they fit the tone and style of the publication and give ample time for possible editing that needs to be done. For my personal piece, I shall aim to write on the shorter end of the word limit, as the less words I have, the easier it’ll be for the others to fit it all in the publication, as I don’t think my text can be broken up into several smaller pieces, as my body of work also consists of text and it might otherwise be confusing for the reader. 

We also discussed what the format of the digital version of our publication should be, as physically the reader will be lead to follow a certain trajectory through the publication, but in a digital publication that intuitive navigation might be lost, as well as the physical aspects of the publication that illustrate our concept. One of our challenges is that while half of our publication can be read normally from front to back, the other half is mirrored, which in a digital file or version of the publication, might get lost or only end up confusing the reader. We came up with an idea to possibly make a pdf of the publication with single pages, thus regulating how the reader can read our contents, but make it so the layout of the pages will reflect how the pages will look like in the actual publication by adjusting the size of the pages. The problem is that that means we give the reader a set beginning and ending point.

The biggest problem for me personally during this project to solve is the balance and relationship between text and image. I made a draft layout for my works in InDesign, but it’s a bit basic. I’m not sure if it’ll fit with what the others have in mind and it ended up looking very… book-esque. Maybe that is the nature of having a limited amount of images and a more vast amount of text comparatively.

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But making the layout did give me the realisation that there will need to be a differentiation between the writing for the publication and the writing that is my work. It will depend on the layout for our publication in the end, whether we choose to have our full text on one page or scattered throughout our pages, as the former will have a clearer differentiation between the two, while the other will have two different texts intermixed. A distinction can either be made through a difference in font or colour. 

I also made a start on some of the writings for this project. Wrote an initial draft for the editorial thinking about our concept and the themes presented in the publication, which I will present to the others tomorrow. I also made a start on the personal writing for the publication, but I’m not really satisfied with it. I can’t seem to strike a balance between personal and somewhat casual, yet philosophical and relating to a bigger picture.

Furthermore I started thinking about what to write in my personal reflection, but didn’t get that far.

Today we got asked to discuss common themes or ideas in our groups and come up with an idea for a layout of our publication. We found common themes within our group, mostly centred around the self and/within its surrounding and the give and take between those two. As such, that is our core theme, which we have divided further into 3 parts: the self/identity (mine and Tong’s works), the physical surrounding (Pody’s and Neveah’s), and life and death or that which might be beyond that physical surrounding (Nan’s and Sheng’s).When we asked Cato for advice, he liked our ideas and thinking and urged us to use their form (the egg) and try to manifest that physically.  

We made several mock-ups for the idea of the egg shape (thank you Tong for documenting our processes ♡)

We also got asked to really consider the format of our publication, whether to go for a physical one or digital, as some of our works are videos, which might perhaps be better shown on a digital format that can actually have the whole work imbedded in it. Personally I think a physical printed publication would be better in conveying our idea of the journey into the self (or actually more like the journey outward from the self) considering our time limitations. While print will give us other challenges, we will avoid other technical issues we might face trying to emulate our concept digitally.

We also divided up our roles for this project. Tong is our art director and project leader. Pody, Neveah, and Nan will be responsible for the layout and graphic design. Sheng will be in charge of printing and making the physical copy of our publication. I have taken (and been bestowed) the role of copy editing.

Today marks the start of our final project of this course and while exciting, I am also starting to feel the upcoming end looming closer and closer. 

I am in a group with Pody, Tong, Sheng, Nan, and Neveah. I think after the independence of Project Realise, it is nice to be in a more collaborative environment again and work together to publish a publication, paralleling the start of the course, now wisened with some more time and experience and forged relations. 

We got asked to look around the journals room in the library for examples of publications that strike us and admittedly I was super tired, so I didn’t really take any pictures or anything, mostly daydreaming about going to bed and taking a nap. But what did intrigue me was the question of how one can balance out text and image. Being in the Humanities pathway, our main body of work is writing based. Now I also know that most people (me included) would rather look at a pretty picture in a publication or something rather than a block full of text, but how would I be able to present my work and still have the reader be as interested in it as any of the works presented by others. I shall return to the library at some point to gather examples of text and image balance that I find works well, since some publications I did page through had whole walls of justified text going nearly all the way to the end of the page and it just made reading it so hard, uninviting, and unpleasant.

What also gave me a ponder was the legibility of text. Anyone reading this blog likely is blessed to be able to see well and read well, but how could I make my text more accessible for people who cannot read well, either due to dyslexia, bad eye sight, or any other reason. Large letter formats could be a solution, but I personally find small dainty looking letters (preferably in a serifed typeface and spaced out with at least 1,5 xxx (like my standard document setup in Pages, Adobe Devanagari 11pt, 1,5 xxx)) to be absolutely gorgeous. (I don’t feel any particular way for justified or unjustified text. Unjustified makes text easier to read and makes the words flow better in my opinion, but justified text gives me a feeling of precision, exactness, and professionalism, which I like to be reflected in my essays.) How can one then balance out form and function, accessibility and aesthetic. This is the question many engineers, designers, and artists must face in order to consider how to reach an audience that might otherwise not be reached, to include those who might otherwise get excluded. I have no solution for my own works yet, but it is a good question to have in mind for in the future. Either way, I know there’s already a large portion of people that are not my audience and most likely don’t even want to be my audience, as just seeing this massive an amount of text is already a turn off. So perhaps one should just relish in an activity as personal as this and write however one wishes. 

Speaking or writing, I am working on slowly sorting out my blog and publishing the writings I have written over the course of the last two projects.