Sameer Kulavoor is an illustrator and designer based in Mumbai, India whose new publication Zeroxwallah zine provides visual evidence of his numerous visits to the city's copy shops.Please tell us a little something about yourself, your studio, Bombay Duck Designs, and what it is like working in Mumbai.
Being born and brought up in Mumbai, India (then Bombay), the transitioning urban landscape, contrast and chaos, diverse people, (pop) cultural mix, globalization, has had an influence on my approach and aesthetics. What I like about working in India is you never fall short of inspiration. Immensely saturated in innumerable ways, it is quite a visual bomb. There's an indescribable beauty about the chaos and the way things work here.
Bombay Duck Designs (BDD) is an umbrella under which I create and direct Illustration, Design and Animation. As a small but specialized design/illustration/animation studio, we do a lot of varied mainstream work globally across print and motion for MNCs to Music bands and channels. Last few projects being:
A (soon to be released) rotoscoped+animated music video (based on the idea of loops) for one of India's leading electro-rock act - Pentagram
Series of illustrations for Mothers Pride pre-school brochure which won a Cannes gold lion (agency: Out of the box, Delhi)
50-page quirky illustrated book for Gillette (agency: BBDO NewYork)
Poster designs and Exhibit for NH7 Weekender, India's biggest music festival.
How did Zeroxwallah come about and what is it about the medium you find so inspiring? What role does the publication play in the promotion of your design studio, if any?
Zerox shops in Bombay are omnipresent and easily spottable due to their distinct yellow black 'identity'. They are usually chaotic and haphazard with signboards that could drive a type-designer a headache (and heart ache) The interiors are equally bold and chaotic, if not more. But they are indispensable for the numerous students and office-goers who frequent them. The overall mish-mash of everything around and inside the Zeroxwallah shop makes it visually quirky and interesting. The smell of the toner combined with the sound (noise of papers,people) of a bustling tiny shop can be a heavy dose to all your senses. Frequenting the Zeroxwallahs during my art/design school (Sir J. J. Institute of applied art) intrigued me and the zine is a way to translate my experiences into a tangible product. The use of photocopy for the book was an obvious choice. And the dash of yellow screenprint over photocopy gives it the perfect character and feel. A limited edition zine was the best way to bring out the spontaneity of the Zeroxwallahs of Bombay.
This zine is one of the many parallel personal projects that BombayDuckDesigns works on so we are not completely gutted with (sometimes mundane) commercial work and it also helps to keep our work fresh and inspiring. 'Zeroxwallah' is the first of many more to come.
Do you think there is an emerging fanzine scene in Mumbai or, in India generally?
The fanzine scene in India is at its nascent stages. One reason being the limited outlets and limited demand. That seems to be changing slowly but surely. Delhi has seen a few book 'boutiques' (CMYK and Yodakin) Mumbai (BMB gallery & bookstore) Chennai (Masalachai store) who believe in encouraging independent artists, designers and publishers. Also The Greenhouse (an art culture venue in Delhi) hosted an intimate event 'I ♥ Small Books' encouraging zines and independent books. These initiatives have created awareness and interest and hence demand. So its an interesting time for the small Indian fanzine scene to take off!
For images of Zeroxwalah zine please see Interview 28 (Part 2).
Des Behari, Dom Latham and Dan Russell of Manchester Municipal Design Corporation, celebrate the 'post-regeneration city' in their new zine, Things Happen.
Please tell us a little something about yourselves. And, where does the Manchester Municipal Design Corporation (MMDC) fit into this story?
We started working together on a collaborative Design MA at Manchester School of Art in 2009 — the Design LAB. There were seven of us all from different design backgrounds (architecture, product design, fine art, media art, ceramics) and all somewhat disillusioned with our pasts. Our project was "what next for Manchester" and we worked with real clients and on self initiated projects in the city. We invented the MMDC name to appear real, get name badges at events and also allow us to function outside and beyond the university, especially when doing work of dubious legality, such as a guerilla street projection/mass gathering outside an abandoned city centre cinema. Most of the active MMDC members now work at Ultimate Holding Company on graphic design and social & environmentally engaged art projects, and are involved in the creation of a Design Without Boundaries-esque university/real world conduit space in our Hotspur House home. A magazine — The Hotspur — a contemporary of the Beano and Dandy may or may not have been printed here, so the next issue of Things Happen will be both a homage to that, and a description of our activity and plans here.
Tell us how Things Happen came about, what has inspired you from a design perspective? What do you hope to achieve with the publication?
The mag occurred because of several things. We wanted to document our activity, and that of our growing circle of like-minds. I used to live in Sheffield and remembered a great zine called Go Sheffo and we got one of the guys behind it over to talk to us. We then stole his idea. He had, in turn, stolen the idea from Mercy in Liverpool. We were(and still are) working on things in response to the city's regeneration running out of steam and money, but still wanted to celebrate what we like. There are also a few swipes at the stuff we dislike! Another reason I value zines is that I play in a DIY trashy pop band, and the international underground that has existed since the 80s is of huge interest to me. The guy that recorded one of our albums in a Leeds basement is friends with Karen Ablaze and it amazes me the people she interviewed for her zine. With design, I'm very keen on DIY and undesigned stuff, so Things Happen Issue One was more my scrappy influence. Oz and the Underground Press Syndicate are amazing (and I inherited a pile of them) as are things like De Stijl, especially at recording a movement and a time & place. Studying architecture I was obsessed with the Bauhaus and Dutch Modernism — the whole package of ethos, design, education and publication. We had a manifesto for MMDC so placing it in the zine seemed natural for readers to understand our angle. Des has had similar exploits in the underground music world promoting DIY gigs in Bristol. I'd simply like the publication to document us, our opinions and our immediate network of collaborators, and act as a method of attracting more people to get in touch if they have similar ideas.
Why have you chosen to move away from the conventions of using a photocopier for producing your zine to using litho printing and a risograph? Do you feel this is indicative of a general shift amongst zine producers today to be more experimental with production techniques?
Risograph is just as cheap as photocopying and there are the joys of colour to work with! We got the litho cover posters done cheaply, too, as the university could print them in house. Although I like the scruffier aesthetic I didn't want Things Happen to look dated, hence the use of different techniques. Stuff like No Zine is great in the use of lithography and colour, as well as the design. I think many people are still photocopying away, but it's no longer the only cheap option. The place we Riso is called MARC, the Manchester Area Resource Centre. Old Man Steptoe and Comic Book Guy work there, and although they are initially rude, they do a good job once you convince them you aren't idiots. They are cheap, and I'm pretty sure stuff like Owt is printed there too.
At the moment Manchester seems to be experiencing a flurry of activity with regards to the fanzine scene. To what do you attribute this resurgence?
Hmm, The Shrieking Violet zine did a feature on why people still publish actual physical things, there were a lot of similar reasons. Mainly the beauty of something you can hold in your hands, something you can stumble across that will last. There's the abstract, pictorial Owt Creative zine that prints stuff from open calls for submissions, the more anecdotal Belle Vue and bunch of others. There's a lot of people just doing stuff, and alongside music, zines are something that are not hard to get out into the world, they have a real grassroots immediacy. There's a zine library in Salford and many self publishing fairs and events, which is great.
What other zines would you recommend us to read, and why?
Manchester's Shrieking Violet — the very prolific editor/author is a collaborator of ours and vice versa. She has published about 10 mags to every one of ours and comes at the city from a similar angle. I'd also recommend Niche Homo in Leeds. An amazing, thick overview of the DIY music scene complete with amusing/disturbing comics and stories (one of the chaps who does it lives in the same Leeds house mentioned above and has done cassette interviews by post after Karen told him that's how things used to be done). Definitely check out Go Sheffo (all online). It's such an inspiring celebration of how he and his friends saw the city. That guy now does the Sheffield Publicity Department (stolen from the opening to The Full Monty—Sheffield, City on the Move!). He almost saved Sheffield's Cooling Towers from demolition and got them on the Channel 4 Big Art programme. He also suggested Park Hill flats be reused and hey presto, Urban Splash stepped in. Our friends the Manchester Modernist Society are going to be publishing a quarterly on Modernism in the Northwest (and beyond), which we, ahem, have designed. We also just finished a Modern A-Z of Manchester and Salford for them. These are worth looking at as they are down-to-earth and accessible, led by enthusiasts, whereas the subject is often dealt with somewhat snobbishly. Our friend Laura is working on a food and art project that, I think, will be a zine too (Feast. We're not designing that one so no guilt about plugging it!
Thanks a lot!
Whilst finishing off his degree in Graphic Design, Kevin Power of Poetry from Outer Space gives us some insights into what has influenced his writing and his illustrations.
Please tell us a little about yourself, how Poetry from Outer Space came about, and why this title?
So, the idea for Poetry from Outer Space started out a few years ago in my brothers house, he is a song writer in a band and had lots of different poetry books lying around at the time, some serious, some surreal and at the same time I had just started my degree in Graphic Design and Illustration at LJMU. That summer I began preparing some sketchbooks before I started, mainly from found objects and making simple drawings from newspapers and magazines. I have always been interested in the Dadaist era, specifically the work of Hannah Hoch and Kurt Schwitters and just after the first issue was released a friend gave me Lawrence Ferlinghetti's 'A Coney Island Of The Mind' and it became a big influence on the next few issues.
The illustrations you use in the fanzine reminds me of early 20th century artists who used collage techniques for making political commentary. Tell us about your approach to your image making and what if any influences/inspiration you are drawing upon?
The process I use will usually start with a hangover! I don't know why but I will usually have been out the night before and had a conversation with someone and there will be a section that I remember combined with one of those weird little news reports you see in a corner of The Guardian like '90 year old Mexican lady wrestler saves Santiago's high street jewellery store' that I will have read that day. As soon as the idea starts to come together I type-write it up and start thinking about some imagery that might work well with it. Over a few weeks I will maybe have about 15-20 typed up bits that I stitch together on the computer to make 6 poems and 6 illustrations.
Tell us a little about the poetry you write for the zines – what inspires you, any influences?
The final part is the Letters Pages which I send out for somebody to reply to and vice versa. These are based on the ridiculous Please Help...! sections we all occasionally read at the back of the Sunday supplements and I thought it might be a funny end to each issue with. I've tried to keep them space themed so people remember the name of the zine and to remind everyone that it is nothing serious just a bit of fun. My main aim is that people who read it find at least one section so ridiculous it makes them laugh. I think that's what zines are about really, something home made, that interests people and makes them happy. No pressure of a deadline or restrictions on creative input. Spontaneity. I don't know of any sad zines.
What are your aspirations for ‘Poetry from Outer Space’?
Aspirations? well, the type-written collection is building and I usually make about 12 collages per issue so i have lots of stuff that never gets printed. If I'm still making it in a few years then I'm thinking of putting on a small show of all the typed roughs and out take collages. I've also had an idea lately to make a Short Stories From Outer Space based on an extension of the letter pages, but it's still early thoughts yet.
What fanzines would you recommend for us to read? Any favourites?
I don't really read that many zines as such but these books have been on my reading list lately and the authors have definately inspired PFOS over the years.
The Proud Highway - Hunter S. Thompson
In Watermelon Sugar - Richard Brautigan
The Road To Los Angeles - John Fante
Richard Davis, editor of River's Edge talks about his zine, his art director, Dan Holliday, and his visual aesthetic.
Tell us a little bit about yourself and how you came to be involved in River's Edge.
I began independently writing and publishing in 2001, when I set up an online art magazine. This was called New Art Star and things were going ok with it for a while, but it's now sadly defunct. There were only two members of staff, me and the regular photographer. We had some regular contributors too. Since then I've been Reviews Editor at Artrocker magazine and worked at the Guardian and Sunday Times.
But all along I felt a need to set up some kind of independent publication and had a sort of nebulous idea about what that might be. I came up with a couple of names and looked around for someone to work with - and found exactly the right person in Dan Holliday. It was while working at Artrocker that I met Dan and we seemed to hit it off (although, it has to be said, Dan is an extremely nice guy and gets on with everyone). I proposed my idea to him and he was happy to get involved. I decided on River's Edge as the title and then there was no stopping us. Not until we'd got the first issue that is. Then we both stopped and got sidetracked by other things. But issue 2 is now on its way.
River's Edge proposes to "want to cover the things that are not already well-covered elsewhere". What kinds of things are you interested in covering and how are you doing this differently?
Well, we try to cover issues and subjects that might not be covered in mainstream discussion. That was always the plan. Not that we rule anything out, but that's most definitely the general ethos. The way I feel about it is that mainstream subjects, be they successful artists or books, are already well catered for. But what about the unnoticed gems, or potential gems, that may be off the beaten track?
As far as the execution of this ethos goes, that part is relatively straightforward: we all, including contributors, generally have an instinct for the neglected and the downtrodden. Or the not yet even had a chance to tread. Some of the people we focus on may go on to bigger things, but that's not our concern. These things happen. Then there are the people who remain defiantly outside the central stream, like Billy Childish.
The production quality of using hand-printing for River's Edge is counter to many zines who rely on photocopied print runs. You also have a named art director: Dan Holliday. Tell us a little about your intentions here and does this make a difference in defining what we understand zines to be?
This is also deliberate. Art and a sense of visual aesthetic will always be central to River's Edge. Dan is an exhibiting artist and printmaker and I have a fine art background. My first job in the world of the written word was working for the art writer and broadcaster Matthew Collings, as his general assistant. But aside from all this, there is also the fact that a unique visual aesthetic is something that sets River's Edge aside. And it's something we're proud of. As far as the future goes, we will not be printing all our copies of River's Edge using the silkscreen method as we did with issue #1. This was a special case (limited edition, 500 individually-numbered copies, only 50 left!). And it's hard work! Though Dan may get a little annoyed at me for pointing that out, as he did most of that hard work (I did my bit, at least one shift on the assembly line). We're looking at other methods, but we may retain the limited-run element for special editions of each issue.
In terms of defining characteristics of a zine, I'm not sure if self-printing is or should be an exclusive defining factor. Probably, it is more to do with the underlying ethos behind the endeavour, and who is actually behind it. There's no big corporation supporting River's Edge. In addition, control over content, production and distribution as well as an overriding DIY approach are probably important, I would have thought.
Can you share with us what some of your favourite zines are and tell us why?
I'm a big fan of Nutshell, which is a kind of literary journal, and is completely self-sufficient, relying on benefit gigs and contributions. We may have to go down that road ourselves.
For further information please see:
www.facebook.com/RiversEdgeJournal
www.riversedgejournal.co.uk
Patrick Fry is a London-based designer and art director whose publication No.Zine has become a much sought after showcase for the work of young artists, writers, designers and illustrators.
