Today in class we're going to spend the bulk of our time in breakout rooms, which will give each student an opportunity to talk about their zine and get ideas from classmates about how to improve it. Each student should have at least 10 minutes to focus on their zine. For the final 15 minutes of class, we'll come back together and talk about what we experienced in the break-out rooms.
For your critique in the breakout rooms, consider the following:
Concept: What is the intention behind the zine? What ideas does it feature? Are they obvious and generic or specific and detailed?
Audience: Who is this book's ideal reader? Is this clearly conveyed in the writing and art?
Writing: How does your writing communicate your ideas? Is it precisely the way you want it? You might not want standard grammar and punctuation, but if that's the case, there should be a reason for it.
Art: How do your images communicate your ideas?
Writing & Art: This is frequently called the text/image relationship. How does your writing work with your images? Does one take a dominant role? If yes, why?
Layout & Execution: How does it look? Are the margins crowded? Is anything illegible? Does the handwriting look haphazard or childish? Was a dreadful font chosen? Are there too many competing fonts? Does it have an even number of pages?
Technical Problems with Digital Matters: Help each other out with this. It truly can be confusing.
Take-Away: How does the zine make you think and feel about the central concept? Did it give you a new way of thinking and feeling about the central concept?
Other Things: You might have other comments or ideas to share with your classmates that don't easily fit into the categories above. Trust yourself and go right ahead.
