This project offers a visual resource for educating male university students about periods in comedic and destigmatising campaign and zine.
Major project
NOT THAT SCARY: Period Education For Guys
Zines & Stickers
A key element of NOT THAT SCARY was researching into campaigns targeted at young adult males to identify motifs that resonate with popular notions of masculinity. Concluding boldness and saturated colours were associated with masculinity, the overall design used a simple colour palette and capitalised, rigid, hand-rendered sans serif fonts to catch young men's eyes in an approachable and humorous manner.
The Zine: Unfolded
Designing the zine layout required a clear understanding of how the handout would be folded in order to ensure each page's orientation was correct. Each page was drawn individually on an artboard and later adjusted to fit the zine's structure. The language on each page offers informative advice rather than condescend to or patronise men.
The Sticker Sheet
Completing the casual aesthetic of the zine were the sticker illustrations; a crucial element in steering the zine away from medical, clinic texts. Imbuing the uterus with a jock-like personality helped signal the product for male audiences, using glasses and personification for comedic effect.
Zine Spreads I
The zine was produced as a risograph limited to two tones of blue and red ink on blue paper to soften the contrast in lieu of a white paper. A number of hand-drawn iterations of zine were created before settling upon the finalised version depicted above produced through digital drawings.
Flying The Red Flag
Aimed at university students at Freshers' Fairs, Carys designed posters that could retain the meanings of her NOT THAT SCARY campaign in an inexplicit and decorative manner. Inspired by Indie bands and their related music posters, the posters are unisex, championing euphemisms such as 'surfing the crimson wave', that blur the line between rebellious, potential band names with playful references to menstruation.
Zine Spreads II
Whilst the zine does not aim to be a classroom textbook, it does use a level of factual descriptions of menstruation and its cycles to dispel popular myths. The zine finishes off by helping its audience turn words into action offering a call to action. The final page lists items to keep in a bathroom as a gesture to guests that they understand what they might be going through and are not seeking to judge.
Carys Bowen
Major project
NOT THAT SCARY: Period Education For Guys