Autism In Women:
For my final major project (FMP) at university, I was ask to write my own creative brief for our own research led project. I wanted to create something that was personal to me. An illustrated educational zine about autism in women. As a woman on the autistic spectrum myself, I wanted to explore what it's like to be a woman on the autistic spectrum.
I wanted to aim my zine at women and teenagers who are not on the autistic spectrum, however, I wanted the project to reach as wider audience as possible.
The Process:
I wanted to experiment with different processes with this project. I want to make the zine as engaging to the viewer as possible, and develop my own styles and techniques in illustration, photography, college and typography.
I also wanted to combine my skills as an illustrator and photography by
combining both disciplines into college. I felt that the colleges gave the zine an engaging narrative and demonstrated my technical skills as a photographer, and made the zine more appealing to the audience.
I also want to experiment with typography, I created my own typeface based on my own handwriting, however, based on feedback, my handwriting was deemed too hard to read, so we rewrote the zine in a more legible typeface.
I also created my own character, Ronnie the owl, as guide to help guide the reader through the zine, but also to add an element of fun and engagement with it, and show my skills as a character designer.
For the assignment of the project, me and my class were asked to create a process book describing the process of our projects. We were also asked to create a kick-starter page and gift packages for the project with items we created ourselves. I designed and created my own badges, stickers, Ronnie the owl clock and a cuddly toy version of Ronnie the owl.
The audience:
I wanted to mainly target the zine at women and teenagers who are not on the autistic spectrum, however, I wanted it to attract as wider audience as possible.
I printed several versions of the zine in order to I printed several versions of the zine in order to receive feedback. For feedback, I looked at two groups, one group was women with autism to make sure I was giving a truthful insight into what it is like to be a woman on the autistic spectrum. The second group was people without autism, the main target audience, to receive feedback on the zine and what they took away from it.
I wanted the final product to be as engaging to all audiences to insure that it was seen by as many people as possible, which I felt will help more people conduct their own research on the subject matter. Making more accessible to a wider audience I believed will make autism in women more acceptable and understood.
The Feedback:
I wanted to receive as much feedback from the project as possible. The first criticism I received was based on my handwritten style typeface based on my hand writing, which was criticised for being hard to read. I decided, based on feedback from my teacher to change the typeface to more legible typeface, but still keep the handwritten format.
Most of the feedback was profoundly positive, with the only criticism being that my hand written typeface was hard to read. I really enjoyed the positive feedback that the project received, and it added to the personality.
