Bachelor exam project brief:
Formulate your own brief to showcase your approach to design
cornerstones of the project:
relevance within a societal context
ethical stance
your own artistic approach
critical reflection on your own work
Process
After studying design in relation to social and environmental sustainability in Australia, I knew that I wanted to aim my design practice towards creating a better future, specifically by using visual communication for educational purposes.
I finally decided to make two informative and approachable fanzines about gender, identity, and sexual orientation, in order to offer people support when initiating a dialogue about these topics. The aim was for them to be easy to read and understand, so they could be used as tools to facilitate intergenerational pedagogy, either from parents to children or from children to parents/grandparents.
Fanzine n.1: Gender & identity
Fanzine n.2: sexual orientation
result
I ended up printing and assembling about 150 copies by hand, before putting them out in several spots in Gothenburg, both official places like the city library or tourist office, as well as coffee places and diverse shops (see a few examples below).
Gothenburg city library
Alternative café Frilagret
Science-fiction shop
reception
In order to get feedback on the kind of crowd the project would attract, I added an extra page in most locations, explaining the project as well as encouraging those who picked up the fanzines to leave a mark in their corresponding age group, or the age group of the person they wanted to show them to.
When I got back to check in after a week, and then two, all fanzines had been taken and a lot of people had left a mark, indicating a wide range of age groups (See one example below)!
“About the project: I made these Fanzines for my Bachelor's exam project in Design, at HDK. I was inspired by my own family's lack of knowledge when it came to gender, identity, and sexual orientation, and called the project “An update on social changes”. It is addressed to anyone who’d like to know more about these subjects.”
In addition, I had put an email address on the back of each fanzine, in case anyone wanted to contact me. I did receive one email from a woman in Stockholm asking if she could get the digital version of the fanzines to print and distribute at work, where she was an LGBTQI+ representative. She had seen my work in a Facebook post, which she screenshotted and sent me (see below).
I also printed extra copies after being asked by the Team Manager at Martin Shop if she could have enough to distribute to all of their employees, as well as send to their other store in Ullared.
further development
The project had two notable developments. the first one was a collaboration with a high school teacher in Mexico, who helped me translate the fanzines to Spanish (in addition to Swedish and English). she had created a feminist association called Mujeres ECO, where she aimed to bypass Mexican censure and challenge their social paradigm. she wanted the fanzines to open a dialogue with her students and association members about these banned topics. here is her introduction to the project:
“#socialchanges is the name of a collaborative project of Eva Leygoine and Paola Alramz, member of the team of Mujeres ECO, México. The object of our collaborative project is to share the knowledge of the fanzines "Gender, Identity and Sexual Orientation" and interact/learn with people in gratiferias of Mujeres ECO.”
the second notable development was the association guts (meeting place for girls) asking for my fanzines years later (2021) after seeing them online. They then used them during MaktCamp (Power camp), which is a communal summer job camp for girls aged 15-16. In the course of two weeks, the teenagers learned about diverse societal norms like gender norms, white normativity, heteronormativity, and ableist norms. At the end, they had to each create Zines to pass on everything they had learned. My Fanzines were used in this context as an example and each child got two to take home.
Zines created by teenagers during maktkamp
Conclusion
the project was a success in my opinion, and it did reach quite a few people. I tried to be as inclusive as possible in the representation I used in the zines, but in retrospect, the age of the characters isn't varied enough, nor are there any disabled people. the term "fanzine" can also be a bit misleading, as my work is rather academic and does not have ties with the original punk fanzines. I chose this term to emphasize how this is project isn't anything official, but only reflects my view on these subjects while being done at home, from a place of love.