Inquiry Question
How can I use digital design tools to create a semester-long zine that captures the genuine authenticity of a physical scrapbook?
Image Credit: Digitally Designed on Canva.
Week One – Beginning Stages of Digital Scrapbook / Hybrid Zine
Image Credit: Digitally Designed on Canva.
Paper → Digital
I’ve missed having the time and opportunity to actually sit down and scrapbook in my journal, but I realized how often I use my laptop, so I thought it would be a good idea to connect the two. Therefore, my goal for this semester-long inquiry is to explore whether I can turn my passion for scrapbooking as a hobby into a digital hybrid zine. Instead of using my usual physical journals, I want to explore digital tools to document my life throughout this semester. I’m challenging myself to do more than just put photos on a page; I want to learn how to use technology to replicate a tangible scrapbook without it looking cold or overly “templated,” and I want to improve on my own digital creative skills, which are pretty minimal, in order to do so.
Image Credit: Digitally Designed on Canva.
My Goal
My focus and goal of this week was to build on the foundation of the beginning stages of my inquiry project, so I spent time looking through my favourite physical scrapbooks to find which specific elements I like, why I like them, and what I want to try and create and/or replicate digitally. I found that I really like overlapping textures and “ephemera”, like scattered doodles, handwritten notes, receipts, stickers, labels, and other things I collect in and throughout my daily life. I also prefer dynamic, not overly structured, messy, authentic, non-linear layouts, which I think brings in more of a human quality, as do handwritten notes and lettering over digital fonts. All of these things stood out to me, and I took notes on them for my digital zine.
Image Credit: Digitally Designed on Canva.
Learning Progress
This week, I would describe my first “failure” as a creative one. I tried to create a digital page using basic simple layout tools, but the result was way too structured and neat. Everything felt too digital and corporate to me, which is the opposite of the creative “messy” authenticity I’m aiming for. I realized that my digital literacy is currently at a point where I am reliant on templates. So I’d say that my first challenge is to unlearn the rigid mentality of digital design in order to allow for my own creativity.
Image Credit: Digitally Designed on Canva.
To move past this, I have started looking into more open resources and design software that allow for more freedom.
- Canva for Education: I’m using this to explore their “frames” and “elements” library to find textures that are similar to real life paper and ink.
- The PSII Inquiry Tools: I used the Pacific School of Innovation and Inquiry (PSII) framework to help refine my task analysis for the next few weeks.
- Creative Commons: I’ve been searching for CC-licensed “paper textures” and “washi tape” PNGs so that the materials I use in my zine are properly sourced and in the open-source community.
Academic Reflection
In terms of my Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD), I would say that I am currently in the “Developing” phase of digital media production. I have the artistic vision, but I don’t yet have the digital skills to work with layers, transparency and combinations to get the true authentic feel I’m looking for.
Image Credit: Digitally Designed on Canva.
I am also doing my best, to of course keep the First Peoples Principles of Learning in mind, specifically that learning is reflexive and experiential. My “failed” first attempt at a digital layout wasn’t a waste of time, but rather it was just a lesson on how digital space differs from physical space. It’s just forcing me to move from being a consumer of digital content to a critical creator.
Resource I found helpful this week:
Zine-Making 101 via Internet Archive
Week Two – Digital Zine Creation / Working on Format
Video Credit: Smith College Libraries on YouTube
My main goal for this week was to focus more on improving my personal zine by intentionally breaking away from the templated structures I felt I was most familiar with and typically relied on. While my initial inquiry question asked how digital scrapbooking tools can capture genuine human connection and artistic authenticity, I’m starting to realize that authenticity is often found through the mistakes and imperfections, rather than the ‘perfected’ digital design I was aiming for. While my last inquiry reflection focused on more general observation and experimenting with the tools at hand, this week is more focused on digital and technical experimentation. I wanted to work on slowly overcoming my reliance on “overly templated” layouts, so I started to use Canva for Education as a starting point, moving away from preset templates towards building my own digital creations and designs.
Image Credit: Created by me on Canva.
I’ve been working on a digital layering model that begins with a foundational background texture or photo that I like and can use as a base layer. I go between using Unsplash, the Internet Archive and licensed scans from Creative Commons. I’ve also been experimenting with the “Edit Image” options within settings so I can add custom drop colours and shadows, as well as stickers and certain designs that I want to include throughout.
Image Credit: Created by me on Canva
In comparison to my physical scrapbooking journals, usually items aren’t ever perfectly flat or organized in alignment; they have a variety of dimensions and size. To try and replicate this digitally, I’ve been experimenting with replicating shadows into a digital format along with sticker placement and edits to make the page feel real and like a ‘tangible’ scrapbook page. Another aspect that I’ve been working on and experimenting with is the colour and gradient scale, especially with exposure, highlights, contrast and transparency. I’ve started with the smaller elements, like digital ‘tape’, so that I can make the paper texture part of the page, like a real scrapbook page with washi tape, glued-on paper textures, stickers, etc.
Video Credit: Fountaindale Public Library on YouTube
To support myself as I work through this shift, I’m leaning more into online open-source communities to find digital elements that don’t feel technical and fake but natural and real. I’m specifically searching for more online artists and digital creators who upload their own artwork to be part of accessible online forums and archives so I know where the art came from, and I can easily find where it was human-made, AI-generated, or a hybrid mix of both physical and digital media.
In relation to this, one of the best online accessible sites I’ve found so far has been The Graphics Fairy. This site has truly been such an incredible resource for finding vintage, copyright-free PNGs that can add the authentic “human quality” to my layouts that I’ve been searching for. I’ve decided that one of my main goals this semester is to truly have digital literacy, and what I mean by this is that I don’t want to just know how to use the buttons, but knowing how to actually manipulate and use each online tool to properly work towards my artistic vision. I’m learning that digital design isn’t just about how I can use the software to help create and do the work for me, but also it’s about me using the software and/or digital design tools to bring my ideas and physical scrapbook aesthetic forward and (hopefully) to life.
Image Credit: Canva, The Graphics Fairy
To connect back to the First Peoples Principles of Learning (FPPL), this reminds me of the idea that learning is reflexive, experiential, and sustained through patience. By actively working against the typical template and digital default, I do believe that I’m using this inquiry to practice a form of experiential learning. I usually start by building off a certain template and/or layout, and then I edit and add and remove certain elements, reflexively editing and adjusting the transparency and rotation until it looks the way I imaged it in my head or on paper, in turn making me not just a consumer of Canva and digital/online aesthetics, but instead i’m becoming my own digital creator.
Image Credit: Canva, Pinterest, and The Graphics Fairy
Next Week
Using my task analysis through the PSII Inquiry Tools, I’ve decided that my new challenge is typography. Therefore, my goal for next week is to explore digital lettering. I’m going to try using my trackpad or a stylus to bring my own handwriting into the zine to see if that connects the gap between the physical and digital layout/design.