Assignment 1 Brainstorm

Digital Art 1

For our first Zine assignment I want to try and tell a visual story that brings the viewer back to their childhood. As we grow up, life can get more and more challenging and make what were once special moments feel a bit dull. We all remember being young children and experiencing a moment of play that brought us happiness and a sense of wonder. This could have been something as simple as playing tag with friends, building a Lego set, or finding a cool bug under a log. Nowadays, we might scoff at these things that once brought us so much joy.

I'm thinking of making the (unspoken) theme of this assignment, "rediscovering childhood joy." This is something that I have been trying to do recently, whether its riding my bike, taking time to watch movies, or putting my phone down for a while and going on a walk. The challenge will of course be to tell this story visually in a way that makes the theme somewhat understandable. I'm thinking of organizing the pages of the Zine in a chronological manner that tell a life story following someone rediscovering their passion/joy. While there won't necessarily be a repeated identifiable figure, I'll use a collection of people/images on each page that tell a similar story at a similar stage in life. The story arc could be something along the lines of birth/early years, discovery of interests passions, development of these passions/joy, burnout/loss of joy, onset of reality/adulthood, chasing money, spark/moment of remembrance, rediscovery of childhood passion/joy. Although this isn't totally nailed down yet, I think the general idea and story arc will hold.

For assembling my Zine I'm planning on printing each page as a quarter of a 8.5x11 sheet. Binding wise, it would be cool to get some book binding string and learn how to sow the spine of the zine together, and then maybe cover the outside in some sort of protective film/tape.