I SEE ZINE
Early on in the creation process, we decided that we wouldn't rely on the use of social media content for our marketing strategy. I want to be clear that we're not doing this because we're anti social media, but because social media shouldn't have such a monopoly over the attention and identity of young people. Instagram, tiktok, and twitter are all valuable tools for our generation to connect, but they are also engineering us out of truly paying attention to material content, and focusing on one thing for more than a couple of seconds. Excessive use of social media as a tool for communication and validation is becoming an intensely damaging practice; it's stopping us from taking time to read things, make things, and exist in the real world.
[above: i See pilot edition layout designs]
i See Zine was founded by Theo Siri, Oscar Blair, Will Mullan and myself in collaboration with Bureau branding studio's Jeff Boardman. i See is made for Gen-Z by Gen-Z - we aim to take back our voice and our culture from the big orgs that profit so heavily from it, so we can provide unfiltered content that young people actually want to consume without putting toxic insecurities and advertisements into their brains.
Clicktivism, with its well-designed text posts, digital strikes and cancel culture is never going to make a real difference to our world, because it doesn't lead to physical mobilization and active change-making, and it doesn't leave our warm echochambers. We need to reclaim our attention spans in order to actually appreciate the world around us, and we need to get off of our socials in order to actually make a difference. Young people need to be on the streets, flyposting, making art, collaborating and sharing space with each other. This is why we need stuff that permeates the material world of the youth - something that can't be scrolled past, that takes time to read and think about, with a physical, unscrollable weight to it.
So what's next for i See? Well, since we haven't existed outside of lockdown, we're looking forward to seeing what we can do in a world with fewer physical restrictions than we're used to. We're chatting with a bunch of funky shops at the moment, so we're aiming to be buy-able in the real world as soon as possible.
On the horizon: Events, Publications, Collaborations, Art in the streets.
[above: i See zine 1 layout designs - all visuals designed by me]
