SELF PUBLISHING - RESEARCH BRIEF - INTRODUCTION/PLAN

This year saw the start of a new interest in my practice, over the course of the year myself and Rob have been working hard on our self-initiated WYS. The main focus of WYS is to use independent publishing to produce artists books across a range of disciplines. This research brief has given me the opportunity to delve into the origins of this topic and the surrounding culture, such as the history of the zine, subcultures, DIY movement and printing methods (RISO/Photocopy/Xerox). I want to use this research led brief as an opportunity to enhance my knowledge on the subject area as I believe this will help us massively with the future of WYS. 

A lot of this year I have been working closely in partnership with Rob we want to use this brief as a chance to produce work that representative of WYS. This brief will be the outline and the beginning of an of short-run black and white zines series that we will use to help show our personal interests and our skills of zine making. 


RESEARCH PLAN 

ZINE CULTURE 

• Purpose of zines (why people make them) 
• History of zines (how it started) 
• Punks/DIY movement
• Subcultures

IND. PUBLISHING 

• Artists books
• What is it? (definition)
• Freedom of speech (expression) 

SUBCULTURES 

• Skateboarding 
• Science fiction 
• Graffiti 
• Punk
• Art in general (artists books)  

BOOKMAKING/PRINTING/PHOTOCOPY 

• Riso
• Photocopy 
• Xerox 

CONVERSE HISTORY (AS MULTIPLE SUBCULTURES) 

• Basketball 
• Music (rock) 
• Skateboarding 
• Popular culture 
• NOW