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The Green Zeen started out as a final project idea in my first year of university. At the time, the focus was on the artwork I made, so the graphic design and branding side of things came after that. The Green Zeen didn't really become a 'brand' until my final year in university, when I decided to actually produce the zine, start a collaboration with another artist, and sell it, which meant advertising it, which then meant making things look more cohesive. I created a simple logo that could be coloured and added-to depending on the style of the zine or extra merchandise. Later on, when I began working on the next issue, I created another version of the logo as I was calling the issue a 'mini' version of the first, and wanted the logo I used to reflect that.
The various versions of the logo.
When designing the pages of the zine, I wanted it to have a somewhat messy, put-together look. Originally, I considered collaging everything analogue, but decided it would make things too complicated, namely knowing where the text would go and whether it would fit. It was much easier to put everything together in InDesign, where I could place text exactly where I wanted and even overlay it with the other aspects of the page. Having chosen to create the pages digitally, I collected various types of paper, ripped some of them into different shapes to avoid lots of straight lines, and scanned them all in. I also scanned in pieces of masking tape to make it look like these pieces of paper, as well as the photos I was going to use, had been collaged together.
As mentioned above, collaborating with artist Rosemary Chea was when I created more permanent branding for the zine. Rosemary created her own logo and we combined the two together to promote the collaboration. This combined logo was used for all the branding relating to the zine bundles, including promotional videos I posted on Instagram.
All the bundle items were packed into a glassine bag, so I decided to make a sticker that showcased all the items inside. The graphics were also used for social media posts.
The collaboration logo and the design of the backing cards for the pins Rosemary made.
We also used the design for the pin backing cards as the design for a little information card/business card we gave out to students in the university and added into the bundles to advertise the zine and collaboration. We used three of Rosemary's sticker designs on one side to add variety to the cards, keeping that side more focused on Rosemary's aesthetic, while I designed the other side to reflect the design of the inside of the zine itself.
I decided to make The Green Zeen mini at the end of the summer in 2023. I had wanted to make the second issue for a while at this point, but wasn't certain what content I wanted to include in it. I instead decided to focus on one topic: growing your own fruit and vegetables and knowing what kind of foods are in season in the summer. For my other business From the Witch's Scullery my mum (and business partner) and I had been taking lots of photos of the progress on our kitchen garden and the kinds of crops we grew, so I began by listing all the in-season plants you can grow from June to August, and cut the list down to only the crops we attempted to grow. We collaboratively wrote all the content for the zine, where we explained how we planted and looked after each crop, and what kind of recipes we used for the harvested fruit or vegetable.
Referencing the list of everything we grew, I illustrated most of the fruit and vegetables on it - first painting them with watercolour, then scanning them in and adding to them digitally in Procreate. I did this with the plan to create a spread in the zine (above), as well as to make a sticker sheet out of them (below).
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When designing the cover of the zine I wanted to reflect what the inside pages were about while also ensuring it looked similar enough to the first issue that it could be easily identified as being from the same brand. It took a couple of tries, but I finally decided on keeping the big, simple shapes of the first issue, as well as handwriting the zine title within them, but decided to add some rendering to the shapes to make it obvious what vegetables they were. To make the cover more cohesive with the inside pages, I also decided to make little illustrations with the same sketch-y style to fill in gaps and to add depth to the things mentioned in the text.
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The collaborative logo used for promotional material (such as social media videos) and the zine and sticker sheet (pictured on the right) designs.
As with the first zine, I designed a sticker for the bundle of this issue, which consisted of either a sticker sheet or a sticker sheet and three mini originals.
With two issues made, the very first information cards I created were no longer up-to-date. Therefore I made some new, simple business cards for The Green Zeen as a whole. On one side I decided to show where the zines can be purchased and where to follow on social media, and on the other side I depicted the two issues and their corresponding bundles. This was a good way to advertise the zines for those who may pick up a card or only purchase one of the zines.