Rachel Tandon, January 2015

2.25” x 3”

Digitally printed

Designed for the course’s final project, this zine covers the evolution of human concept of the universe, beginning with the flat Earth theory, going through geocentrism and heliocentrism to modern day universal expansion theory, and ending with the multiverse theory. It is designed to present past theories as a platform to understanding and viewing today’s modern theories in cosmology. Through the logical progression of content, as our concept of the universe gets bigger and bigger throughout the zine, and the paring down of statements and illustrations, I hope to convey the hard to grasp concepts in an easily digestible way. The idea of the zine is also not only to educate, but to provoke thought and lead to a pause in people’s days—it is to provide a moment for readers to stop the immediacy of their lives and just sit and read and think for a while.

The zine is hand-written and illustrated, and digitally colored in Illustrator. The pages get wider as you flip through the zine, and the zine in total is about the size of a credit card.

The zine costs 15¢ to print and was distributed in the Blue Room at Brown University during dinner hours. I placed a few copies on each table and observed people’s reactions from a side booth. Overall, people had positive reactions to it, many taking the time to pause and read it fully—some even recommending it to their friends to read after they finished. Verbally, I was told it was “cute,” the “donut” illustration really helped, and people liked the intuitive widening of the pages.

I had also instructed viewers to go to the tumblr page arewerightyet.tumblr.com to critique the zine, but I didn’t receive any comments this way. I figured out how to track visits to the website, however, half way through the distribution and by the end of the night eight people had taken the time to type in the address and visit the website. Ideally, I would have been able to set up an online forum where people could comment on the project without having to log in to their personal tumblrs first (or create an account).

I really enjoyed making this zine, as well as receiving responses to it and I could see myself making it into a series, sharing other modern scientific theories in similar ways.

initial brainstorming

layout brainstorming

form prototyping

layout

more layout

finished zine

title page

p. 1

p. 2

p. 3

p. 4

p. 5

p. 6

p. 7

p. 8

p. 9

p. 10

back

distribution in the Blue Room

distribution in the Blue Room

distribution in the Blue Room

distribution in the Blue Room

video still–reading it

video still–saying it’s actually worth something

video still–recommending it to friend

video still–friend picking it up to look at it

tumblr page

tumblr page visitor statistics at end of night

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Rachel Tandon, January 2015

2 ¾ inches x 34 inches unrolled, x3

Plotter-print on paper

In response to a prompt to create a zine inspired by an everyday object, I chose to make a zine about chapstick. I began by researching as much as I could about chapstick, accepting everything I found, and eventually discovering there are many more facets to it than just its history. I found that chapstick is not only a highly referenced object in current pop culture, but also something that’s shaping our culture. And, it is an object adamantly loved and adamantly hated.

Inspired by the strong, and sometimes trivial, responses I surveyed on the internet, I wrote this zine emphasizing the absurdity of chapstick as a simple, small, practical object, yet something that can also inspire strong cultural reactions. This duality inspired the way in which I presented each category, pairing each objective, fairly obvious truth about chapstick, with a similar yet much more unexpected parallel fact. The zine comes in a set of three volumes–use, function, and social–and each volume rolls up into a chapstick-sized tube for easy distribution. The content of the zine is a combination of writing, personal illustrations, and digital collage.

some initial research

planning/layout

final zine

(unrolled)

vol. 1: use

vol. 1: use

vol. 1: use

vol. 2: function

vol. 2: function

vol. 2: function

(for scale)

vol. 3: social

vol. 3: social

vol. 3: social

Rachel Tandon, Elise Mortenson, Fran Brauning, January 2015

6.5” x 9.75” x 2”

Sculpted objects, digitally printed zine, tumblr website

#itme15 was a collaborative zine resulting from a prompt to explore the boundaries of what classically constitutes a zine. Working on the topic of identity, we chose to incorporate an event into the zine generation process, having audience participation drive the content of the zine. After our initial brainstorming on the topic, we realized that identity is a topic to be determined by individuals themselves, and that everyone has a different aspect of their identity that they identify with first. We wanted to foster an event that gave people a platform to express their identity without restrictions or categories to answer.

We hosted an event providing people with clay and many other assorted materials from which to sculpt small representations of their identity. We asked each participant to sculpt a small object and write a short statement about it, the only restriction being that the object must fit within a certain size box.

The event was a success, with over 40 people participating and contributing objects to the collection. The objects ranged from a remake of someone’s favorite baseball cap to abstract representations of the conversations a person has with himself in his head. Once the event was over, we documented all of the objects and statements and paired them with our introduction to identity and the ideas behind the event in a printed zine. The physical zine, which comes in a box containing six physical objects from the party, has a limited circulation, and we created a tumblr page with similar content for wider audience reach.

The tumblr address: http://itme15risd.tumblr.com/

initial brainstorming

event planning

screenshot of the event invitation

printed zine and box layout

final zine content

final printed zine + box set

tumblr page

Rachel Tandon, January 2015

8.5” x 11”

Digitally printed

This is my portion of the class-wide exquisite corpse, inspired by a piece created by the person in line before me (a snippet of which is pictured below). The piece before mine included many different references, some examples being memes, classical renderings of the male torso, a person vomiting, chinese lettering, and the western symbol for “prohibited.” Inspired by this semi-overwhelming layering of references and the strong tie to modern culture with the meme, I decided to draw and digitally collage a girl, perhaps dressed in clothes from the club, puking out iconic Greco-Roman sculptures. Making this piece made me question my place as an artist and my position to be creating such a pairing and statement. I realized that just like all of modern culture, I will never be fully separate from my past absorption of references—all of the things I have seen, all of the art, all of the life-experiences, will inevitably shape the art I make—they are the banks my mind subconsciously pulls from. For this, I am eating the classic Greco-Roman sculptures in the second drawing. Although Greco-Roman sculptures aren’t the direct inspiration for modern culture today, everything—culture, society, art—seems to be based in the recycling and reuse of references.

(front)

(back)

inspiration (2″ x 2″ selection from original 8.5″ x 8.5″ piece sent to me)

For each project, please follow this order.

Text:

0. Project title (type on the post title section above)

1. Your Name, credit if you collaborated with others

2. Dimension, material, year

3. Project website link (if you have)

4. Project description (minimum 130 words)

Images: include captions.

1. Process (sketches, mockups, etc)

2. Final Product: consider how you can show actual experience of your zine

–Printed matter: cover and inside
–Web / App: screenshots of multiple pages
–Video: screenshots of multiple frames
–Environmental: final piece itself plus installation views

3. Distribution

–Web/ App platform: screenshots of feedback
–Event, installation: multiple views to clearly show people encountering your zine
–Staged proposal: multiple views to explain possible interactions

*This is an example of inserted media.

type your caption under each image