Week 2 of doing project work at home, I have found that my time management is a lot worse now, despite the fact I created a timetable prior to starting the project that essentially mapped out the following 8 weeks. I guess it is just going to take time to adjust to life in lockdown. This experience will also benefit me in life after college as I won’t have a separate building to go to, I’ll most likely be working from home then, as I am now so this will prepare me for that.

I have currently come up with 3 main ideas for the zine and made sketches to illustrate them. The drawings are really ropey, but they are just initial sketches and will improve dramatically over time. My first idea depicts a woman who is constantly being bombarded by advertisements that tell her to buy things, the constant pressure has driven her into serious anxiety. I came up with this idea because the Conscious Consumption brief suggested that we explore not just what we consume, but why, and advertisements are certainly a huge part of why we buy so much. They are everywhere, at home on your tv, in magazines, newspapers, online. They don’t stop inside either, almost everywhere you go outside, especially in more urban areas, there are advertisements on huge billboards, on buses and at bus stops, even on the side of bridges. Always telling you to buy something new and this can put a lot of pressure on people to buy more stuff. It has also created a culture where you can be considered uncool if you don’t own the latest thing, latest fashion trend or technological item. People can bully you for it and that adds to the pressure to consume even more. I really want to show this from a focused and personal point of view by depicting what the pressure can do one single person.

With my second idea I am aiming to show where the plastic people discard ends up, in the stomachs of marine animals. While it may not be clear with my initial sketch, this illustration will depict an orca made up entirely of ocean plastic, symbolising how plastic is consuming the ocean and everything within it. This is my favourite idea out of the three I currently have, as it tries to raise awareness to an issue I care greatly about, animal conservation. I want to show people that their actions have consequences that affect innocent creatures that have no way of fighting back against the things we do. The idea will be largely visually inspired by the work of Good Wives and Warriors who often create highly complicated illustrations that are made up of smaller illustrations and digitally collage them together.

Finally, my third idea takes a less negative approach to showing Conscious Consumption. It would show the planet made up of small consumer products. On one side of the earth there will be products that are harmful for the environment, such as single use plastic water bottles. The other side of the earth will be made up of eco-friendly alternatives to harmful products, such as reusable steel water bottles which don’t end up in the ocean. The aim of this illustration would be to educate people on sustainable buying by showing them that there are less harmful ways to consume without making any big changes to their lives. Small changes, big impact.

Normally I would choose one of the ideas to develop and take forward, however, since I am creating a zine which is going to require multiple illustrations, I am most likely going to develop all three of them. I may even come up with more ideas as I go along. My next step is creating development drawings from these initial sketches and also researching ways I could make a zine. Currently I am thinking of using the one page zine method as it is the only one I am familiar with, I haven’t really created a zine before so I am going to need to research a lot.