Initially I found it challenging to generate ideas for the zines by simply sitting down and thinking about them, and so instead I consulted a variety of personal lists that I had made when I had thought of a quick or amusing idea for a zine, and written it down. I found this to be much more effective in discovering how I might embed my personality into these zines, as they had all been inspired by things I'd done or places I'd been. The ideas were also one's I had been wanted to try for some time and this was the best opportunity to experiment with new ideas. The humour also felt genuine in a way that it could not had I tried to force an idea.
My initial ideas included:
-A zine of orange juice reviews, inspired by my love of drinking orange juice
-A written score of an interpretive dance, inspired by my interest in performance art
-A number of meaningless, but none-the-less impressive facts about myself
-A zine that would include the same abstract shape on each page with my interpretation alongside (e.g. a bird, a slug)
-My theory about how a really good sandwich should have the automatic ability to turn into an everlasting sandwich
-The first four stills from my favourite film, hand drawn (the same badly drawn image four times)
-A large number of hand drawn circles (10,000+), increasing by the power of ten each page
-My well practiced theory that one can communicate a variety of emotions in any social situation with just a sniff
-The same image photocopied a large number of times, making the images appear abstract over time
-A list of interesting things to do as a designer
I presented these ideas in a critique. Originally I had thought that I would not share many of my ideas through the progression of this project, as the work was intended to be personal to me and not to please a clientele. However, as the work produced would act as a marketing tool, the content I chose would need to be engaging to a wide audience, and so I asked a range of students to select the ideas that they connected to the most, that they found the most humorous, or that they felt demonstrated an aspect of my personality the best. Overall the results were fairly similar, with the Orange Juice, Interpretive Dance and Interesting Things To Do As a Designer ideas being the preferred favourites.
Personally I felt that the Interesting Things To Do As a Designer idea was the most clichéd of all my ideas, as there have been multiple 'How To' guides made for Graphic Designers and this idea could perceived as gimmicky. I discarded this idea and returned to my list as I felt a larger number of zines would portray a more varied portrait of my personality.