Project 3: Steal This Book
Meme Zine
This is a small zine made without any original material (words, photographs, etc.), solely repurposing content found online. I chose to emphasize my use of popular, communal online content through the zine's meme theme. Memes are popular items that are reused and changed without accrediting either the pop-culture image's source (which is assumed to be known popularly) or citing the original meme being altered. My "Meme Zine" follows in suit with the common etiquette surrounding meme accreditation and distribution.
Process & Reflection:
I asked my friends to send me memes and chose the first three images I was sent, rather than only my favorites because the majority of memes I see day-to-day are a result of what friends send me or what the Instagram algorithm feeds me, and you often pass through many mediocre memes before seeing better ones. I image-traced the text in Illustrator and grid and mirror duplicated it to fill the page, only typing out the cursive meme, as it is less legible in large amounts and resembles a pattern of repeated motifs more than type.
I initially mapped a fluorescent gradient onto each meme image, and I maintained that two-toned color scheme throughout the zine's background and text. However, I ran out of colored printing dollars during my last project, and used my friend's low-quality black/white printer instead. In critique, this was received well, as it seemed like a utilitarian, archival slice of pop-culture media. So I went back and put my zine in grayscale then added color halftones to give it a newsprint effect, as I wanted to lean in to this unintentional aspect of my piece.
