Music Genre Zine

Musical Genres Doodle Zine

This is a book called 'Information is beautiful' by David McCandless

I created my first doodle like this originally as a distraction from smoking. Although it isn't a very large image it is very compact and takes a long time to fill. 

With each different genre I wanted to communicate the elements which I personally found as a visualisation of that particular genre.

I do some research for each genre by googling the genre and listening to different songs on a youtube playlist for the genre whilst googling different bands and photographs as a stimuli.

The colours is some spectrum of synesthesia (associating colours with sound)... this is a personal response to what colours I associate with the different music genres but I appreciate that this is very subjective.

1) Front Cover (strip from each)

2) Classical (brownish)

3) Blues (blue)

4) Country (light yellow)

5) Hippy (green)

6) Glam Rock (orangey red)

7) Heavy Metal (dark blue) 

8) New Romance (magenta)

9) Punk (purple)

10) Grunge (red)

11) Rap (b&w)

12) Back Cover (strip from each)

My Bluegrass band (Bluegrass/country music)

Grunge- inspired by the death of legend Chris Cornell

Blues and Jazz
Here I made 2 different versions because I thought I needed to make the pages look reasonably different and I liked the vibrancy of the turquoise

This was the first page that I did a little plan. I had an idea of which elements and figures I wanted to include

I needed to find some inspiration as to what to do about titles and text... The front cover is very busy and with line work and therefore I need to find someway to make the font stand out. 

I decided that the zine spoke for itself and I couldn't come up with a title that would say anything that the front cover already did. i felt that the book was so personal and expressive that words would detract from the illustration and preconceive something that I wanted to be a response form the reader.

I struggled at around the 7th page to continue finding patterns and symbols to express. I have realised that to me music isn't really in different categories but rather is a spectrum that morphs into each other. I also have detracted from the doodles in which they started as I have started to become precious about things being right. Music is a thing where some people are experts and will notice I have made mistakes by being naiive and un-expert about it. I listen to music because I like it and don't listen to the music I don't, without having justification or recognising the genre... I just feeeeeeel it.
I played a really good game the other day that exemplifies this... you take it in turns to chose/put the next song on. It needs to be linked and inspired by the first song and you have the length of the song to decide. This can be incredibly challenging and the word passed around about my links was tenuous proving how subjective music is!
 I am particularly struggling with glam rock and glam metal because to my Dad they are very different but to me not so much... listening to a song I don't know when they were around of lived through the development of the genres and experienced the change in culture.
Visualising music is something I have always been interested in and I am glad that I tried this. 
If I was to do it again I think everything would be one a spectrum, like a concertina, morphing into one another... or divided through time periods showing the contrasts of culture. Maybe this is a task to set myself next summer as a development? However I have learnt from creating this and feel that this has influenced my visual language and development as an artist.

I have been thinking about this and perhaps I can turn these into postcards (printed in the dungeon) or a poster which has a grid of them all. 

This could be perfect, especially for the bluegrass as it could work as merchandise.

Could I order the zine like a time line of the different genres as a way of ordering it or is there too much overlap/large periods?

 The actual creating of the Zine took at day. I was pleased that I remembered how to use InDesign correctly. I did print some black and white copies until they were right (not printing upside down and scaling to fit A4 which made it cheaper to print).
I printed 30 copies out and messed up one in the process but that meant I could keep one for myself.
Because I am selling these I wanted every copy to look professional and right so I had to make sure everything was perfect individually for all 30 throughout the different stages.

 It was really difficult pricing the Zine. It cost me £1.15 to print each copy but each drawing inside took at least 4 hours and multiple attempts to complete. I had to ask advice on the pricing. I had someone tell me that it is good to charge £3.00/£3.50 because as a new illustrator it is good to just get your name out there! Someone else said that because it was a full colour print and very dense and obviously a lot of time had gone into the Zine I could charge £5/£6. I thought I would go in the middle and charge £4 which is less than a fiver but still would give me some profit.

I am really pleased with the outcome and am really excited that I have created something for my self over the summer, and that I can begin to earn from my art (both music and illustration).

Jane Tomlinson
After I had finished my 10th doodle I found this! She won a prize last year of a map of the shipping forecast for the British Cartographic Society awards.
'An original painting of British Rock Music showing some of the artists and bands I love, as well as history and universal icons. Watercolour with inks and transfers on paper, size A1.'
This is a crazy awesome collage of the different music genres... a different way of visualising music. They are a lot of symbols in here that I have used as well (like the Led Zeppelin symbols) and its crazy that these are hang painted! I think this poster works really well because everything morphs into one another as a fluid collage. Its so complex, like a feast for the eyes... there is always something different to spot and decode! It interesting how she has used words and phrases as well as I wanted to avoid that BUT it works here.

Walked this down to Jumbo records in town and they said that they really liked it and would sell it for £3.00 with me getting £2.25 per zine.