NEGOTIATED BRIEF: Zine creation

I wanted to create the zines in the easiest method possible, a stack of paper correctly paginated with a cover wrap at the bottom, staple in the centre and fold, and the zine is assembled and in the correct order. I didn't expect to have so much trouble with the pagination, initially I was using InDesign, which was having issues paginating correctly, after wasting a whole day trying to print this way, I decided to paginate manually. I made a small zine mock up of blank pages, I then numbered all of the pages, and took the zine apart. I assigned numbers to each half of a comic strip, and then arranged them in the order I worked out from my mockup, printing in this method was a lot quicker and easier to troubleshoot when things went wrong. I initially wanted to use the risograph printer to print the bulk of the zine on newsprint, for an authentic feel, but as of the hand in date, the risograph printer is still out of black ink, I later hope to print these zines how I intended and sell them at a stall in London.

NEGOTIATED BRIEF: Final Images

NEGOTIATED BRIEF: Speakeasy

In my zine one of the main characters will be a mobster that owns a speakeasy named the blind pigeon, this is in reference to speakeasies often being referred to as a blind pig or blind tiger.

A speakeasy, is an establishment that illegally sells alcoholic beverages. Such establishments came into prominence in the United States during the Prohibition era.

Speakeasies were numerous and popular during the Prohibition years. Some of them were operated by people who were part of organized crime. Even though police and agents of the Bureau of Prohibition would often raid them and arrest their owners and patrons, they were so profitable that they continued to flourish. The speakeasy soon became one of the biggest parts of American culture during this time. Several changes happened as speakeasies formed; one was with integration. With “black and tans”, people of all kinds, black or white, would gather together and even mingle. People would mix together and have little to no problems. When the Detroit-Windsor tunnel was opened in 1930, it became yet another way for alcohol to be smuggled into the United States, creating more business for mobsters in the area.

The poor quality bootleg liquor sold in some speakeasies was responsible for a shift away from 19th-century 'classic' cocktails, that celebrated the raw taste of the liquor (such as the gin cocktail, made with Genever (sweet) gin), to new cocktails aimed at masking the taste of rough moonshine. These masking drinks were termed 'pansies' at the time (although some, such as the Brandy Alexander, would now be termed 'classic'). The quality of the alcohol sold in the speakeasy could range from very poor to very good; this all depended on the way the owner got the product. Cheap liquor was generally used because it would help with profits. But in other cases, brand names were used to specify the type of alcohol people wanted. However, sometimes when brand names were used, some speakeasies cheated; they lied to their customers by giving them poor quality liquor instead of the higher-quality liquor the customer ordered. Prices were four to five dollars a bottle.

NEGOTIATED BRIEF: Newspaper Comics

Here are a few of the most famous newspaper comics I could think of, I want to base my comics general aesthetic off of these comics and their other strips, they are; Calvin and Hobbes, Peanuts, Betty Boob, Felix the Cat, and Andy Capp (from Hartlepool) I'm going to go with 4 panel comic strips as this is what I generally think of when I think of newspaper comics.

NEGOTIATED BRIEF: Cartoons

Here is a collection of cartoons from the 1930's, these will help me to get a style and themeing for my images and over all zine. A very apparent similarity of all of these is the black and white colours scheme due to technical limitations of the time, my zines will be black and white anyway due to the newspaper comic appearance.

NEGOTIATED BRIEF: The Mob

Al Capone was by far the most famous mobster in times of prohibition

• Making alcohol at home was very common during Prohibition. Stores sold grape concentrate with warning labels that listed the steps that should be avoided to prevent the juice from fermenting into wine. Some drugstores sold "medical wine" with around a 22% alcohol content. In order to justify the sale, the wine was given a medicinal taste. Home-distilled hard liquor was calledbathtub gin in northern cities, and moonshine in rural areas of Virginia, Kentucky, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, andTennessee. Homebrewing good hard liquor was easier than brewing good beer. Since selling privately distilled alcohol was illegal and bypassed government taxation, law enforcement officers relentlessly pursued manufacturers. In response, bootleggers modified their cars and trucks by enhancing the engines and suspensions to make faster vehicles that, they presumed, would improve their chances of outrunning and escaping agents of the Bureau of Prohibition, commonly called "revenue agents" or "revenuers". These cars became known as "moonshine runners" or"'shine runners". Shops were also known to participate in the underground liquor market, by loading their stocks with ingredients for liquors, including bénédictine,vermouth, scotch mash, and even ethyl alcohol, which anyone could purchase legally.

• Prohibition also had an effect on the music industry in the United States, specifically with jazz. Speakeasies became very popular, and the Great Depression's migratory effects led to the dispersal of jazz music, from New Orleans and went north through Chicago and to New York. This led to the development of different styles in different cities. Its popularity in speakeasies and the emergence of advanced recording technology, jazz's popularity skyrocketed. It was also at the forefront of the minimal integration efforts going on at the time, as it united mostly black musicians with mostly white audiences.

• Along with other economic effects, the enactment and enforcement of Prohibition caused an increase in resource costs. During the 1920s the annual budget of theBureau of Prohibition went from $4.4 million to $13.4 million. Additionally, the U.S. Coast Guard spent an average of $13 million annually on enforcement of prohibition laws. These numbers do not take into account the costs to local and state governments.

NEGOTIATED BRIEF: Prohibition

• Prohibition in the United States was a nationwide constitutional ban on the sale, production, importation, and transportation of alcoholic beverages that remained in place from 1920 to 1933. It was promoted by the "dry" crusaders, a movement led by rural Protestants and social Progressives in the Democratic and Republican parties, and was coordinated by the Anti-Saloon League, and the Woman's Christian Temperance Union. Prohibition was mandated under the Eighteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Enabling legislation, known as the Volstead Act, set down the rules for enforcing the ban and defined the types of alcoholic beverages that were prohibited. For example, religious uses of wine were allowed. Private ownership and consumption of alcohol was not made illegal under federal law; however, in many areas local laws were more strict, with some states banning possession outright. Nationwide Prohibition ended with the ratification of the Twenty-first Amendment, which repealed the Eighteenth Amendment, on December 5, 1933.

• Prohibition marked one of the last stages of the Progressive Era. During the 19th century, alcoholism, drug abuse, gambling addiction, and a variety of other social ills and abuses led to the activism to try to cure the perceived problems in society. Among other things this led many communities in the late 19th and early 20th century to introduce alcohol prohibition, with the subsequent enforcement in law becoming a hotly debated issue. Prohibition supporters, called drys, presented it as a victory for public morals and health. Anti-prohibitionists, known as wets, criticised the alcohol ban as an intrusion of mainly rural Protestant ideals on a central aspect of urban, immigrant, and Catholic life. Though popular opinion believes that Prohibition failed, it succeeded in cutting overall alcohol consumption in half during the 1920s, and consumption remained below pre-Prohibition levels until the 1940s, suggesting that Prohibition did socialise a significant proportion of the population in temperate habits, at least temporarily. Some researchers contend that its political failure is attributable more to a changing historical context than to characteristics of the law itself. Criticism remains that Prohibition led to unintended consequences such as the growth of urban crime organisations. As an experiment it lost supporters every year, and lost tax revenue that governments needed when the Great Depression began in 1929.

• Organised crime received a major boost from Prohibition. Mafia groups limited their activities to prostitution, gambling, and theft until 1920, when organised bootlegging emerged in response to Prohibition. A profitable, often violent, black market for alcohol flourished. Prohibition provided a financial basis for organised crime to flourish.

• In a study of more than 30 major U.S. cities during the Prohibition years of 1920 and 1921, the number of crimes increased by 24%. Additionally, theft and burglaries increased by 9%, homicides by 12.7%, assaults and battery rose by 13%, drug addiction by 44.6%, and police department costs rose by 11.4%. This was largely the result of "black-market violence" and the diversion of law enforcement resources elsewhere. Despite the Prohibition movement's hope that outlawing alcohol would reduce crime, the reality was that the Volstead Act led to higher crime rates than were experienced prior to Prohibition and the establishment of a black market dominated by criminal organisations. The Saint Valentine's Day Massacre produced seven deaths, considered one of the deadliest days of mob history.

• Furthermore, stronger liquor surged in popularity because its potency made it more profitable to smuggle. To prevent bootleggers from using industrial ethyl alcohol to produce illegal beverages, the federal government ordered the poisoning of industrial alcohols. In response, bootleggers hired chemists who successfully renatured the alcohol to make it drinkable. As a response, the Treasury Department required manufacturers to add more deadly poisons, including the particularly deadly methyl alcohol. New York City medical examiners prominently opposed these policies because of the danger to human life. As many as 10,000 people died from drinking denatured alcohol before Prohibition ended. New York City medical examiner Charles Norris believed the government took responsibility for murder when they knew the poison was not deterring people and they continued to poison industrial alcohol (which would be used in drinking alcohol) anyway. Norris remarked: "The government knows it is not stopping drinking by putting poison in alcohol... Yet it continues its poisoning processes, heedless of the fact that people determined to drink are daily absorbing that poison. Knowing this to be true, the United States government must be charged with the moral responsibility for the deaths that poisoned liquor causes, although it cannot be held legally responsible."

NEGOTIATED BRIEF: 1930s

• The Great Depression is considered to have begun with the stock market crash on September 4, 1929 and lasted through much of the 1930s.

• The entire decade is marked by widespread unemployment and poverty, although deflation (i.e. falling prices) was limited to 1930-32 and 1938-39. 

• Economic interventionist policies increase in popularity as a result of the Great Depression in both authoritarian and democratic countries. In the Western world, Keynesianism replaces classical economic theory.

• In an effort to reduce unemployment the government created work projects such as the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) which was a public work relief program that operated from 1933 to 1942 to maintain National Parks and build roads. Other major government work projects included Hoover Dam which was constructed between 1931 and 1936.

• Rapid industrialization takes place in the Soviet Union.

• Prohibition in the United States ended in 1933. On December 5, 1933, the ratification of the Twenty-first Amendment repealed the Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.

• Drought conditions in Oklahoma and Texas caused the Dust Bowl which forced tens of thousands of families to abandon their farms and seek employment elsewhere.

NEGOTIATED BRIEF: Burgundy & Green

I will be creating a series of daily newspaper style, four-panel comic strips entitled “Burgundy & Green”. The narrative style will be like that of “Peanuts” or “Calvin and Hobbes”. I want these comics to be presented as a risograph printed zine to be sold. These comics will be drawn in a style common of the 1930’s, based lightly on the short cartoon “Steamboat Willie”. I will be prominently using black and white due to the newspaper style, but will include some highlights, and the colours burgundy and green in keeping to the title to the story.

The plot of the comic series will centre on Mr Green and his fall into the underbelly of 1930’s New York society. Mr. Green is an alcoholic ex-cop who finds himself in New York after being kicked off the force due to his excessive drinking in the time of prohibition. After being left by his hard working, showgirl wife and young daughter, his alcoholism and unemployment swiftly result in the mounting of bills. As such, he quickly finds himself indebted to the biggest mob family on the lower east side. The notorious gang is lead by a Mr Burgundy - an eccentric young mob boss who has been rapidly been building his reputation throughout town. Although initially hostile the two swiftly become friends and partners in crime. This is due to Mr. Burgundy’s illegal manufacture and distribution of ‘Hooch’; an alcoholic, home brewed beverage popular during prohibition, and Mr. Green’s drink of choice. The stories will revolve around Burgundy & Green, and the rest of the mob family, and their adventures in selling illegal alcohol during prohibition. There is also opportunity to include stories of encounters with rival gangs, and the experience of running a speakeasy in the most cop filled city in America. The comic strips will be narrated in the style of “The Golden Age of Radio” - the days before television when radio stations would frequently broadcast live readings of Dramas. This idea is a reversal of the radio adaptation of the comic strip “Dick Tracy”. To represent this, the narration of the comic will occasionally feature a radio broadcaster, typically to introduce characters or to provide a brief outline of the situation.

Evaluation and Conclusion of Module 4 Wylam

My concept for the Wylam brief came from the company’s desire for a traditional design, based around their new Roman inspired ale. Carrying this Roman theme into my design, my initial idea was to have the Roman god of alcohol, Bacchus, surrounded by his followers - the Faunus, and Roman soldiers. They would be depicted as drinking beer and having a party in order to associate the drinking of this particular product with having fun. Additionally, I chose to try and tailor my illustrations to mimic the style of a spiral frieze, like that of Trajan's Column. This decision was made as the Column depicts an ancient Roman battle and is widely considered as one of the first examples of narrative illustration. This links in nicely with the concept and inspiration for the ale I have designed a label for, as it is not only Roman inspired but is based upon an ancient recipe for a ‘Battle Booster’ drink. This was intended to improve soldier moral and fighting prowess. By basing my design presentation on that of a spiral frieze I would be able to address Wylam’s desire for a more traditional design, by using more muted colours and adding greater detail. This is unlike many modern craft beer label designs as many incorporate more simplistic shapes and a limited colour palette of black or white, and 2-4 bright colours.
Part way through my project, however, I decided to cut the idea of Bacchus due to his relative uncommonness in the modern world. Additionally, the image of a morbidly obese man drinking alcohol (as he was traditionally most commonly portrayed) implies negative health implications from drinking the product. I instead decided to simply imply his presence through an image of the Roman soldiers and Faunus drinking and celebrating together. The font and style of illustration, I feel, maintained the required historical context throughout the image. It took a number of attempts to work on creating a convincing carved stone effect, and I believe that what I created was the best possible result. Unfortunately, due to the nature of this effect (very similar stone and character colours, only differentiated by shading)I feel that the characters may be a little lost to the background. However, overall I felt this sufficiently maintained the Roman theme that the brand is orientated around.
My initial concept was strong and gave me a very good basis from which to start working from. I believe that the final illustrations developed from my initial concept successfully reflect the conditions required for the brief. If I were to do the project again I think I would research different styles of Roman art, such as Mosaic, which would allow me to use brighter colours, and may also allow better framing of my illustrations on the label. I would like to have compared a design based upon alternative styles to my current final design in order to see which gave the product a greater impact upon the market.

WYLAM BREWERY: Finals

 I created all of the text in the same way. I used layer styles on plain black text to easily replicate the same style, I used times new roman text so it will easily be associated with rome.
I also used a free use stone texture from the lost and taken website, and edited the colours.

In my Concept i was originally going to draw my characters aswell as Bacchus drinking but i decided to remove Bacchus as i didn't want to feature a ridiculously overweight man on the beer label due to the common ideas of beer drinker being overweight.

 I started with plain black text.

 Then applied these layer styles so that it would look as though it was chiseled into stone.

 and ended up with this.

this is it after the layer styles were rasterised and it looks a bit more natural

 I used a 7% fill so that it looked shaded inside the text without it being solid black

Here is where I started layering up the design

 I created a little bar scene in the style of trajans column to fit the style, i tried making various layers and flourishes on the bar, but it distracted from the simple characters so instead i left it at two layers of detail in the end

 this was the original drawing that i applied effects to

 Here is my series of characters for the bottle, they are roman soldiers and Faunus, i explain this in previous blogposts

 this was the original sketch

 I isolated the characters like this to apply the layer styles

 I then cut out the characters and placed them over my bar scene

 This is my finished Label design

 I then created the bar clip using the same techniques

 I also created the circular bar clip

 i show the creation of these lines later on

 These are the layer styles that i applied to the lines in order to make it look as though they were sticking out instead of being carved in