I think this project was one of the most challenging projects i have ever created. I started off using my experience as the base point and it shaped to be communicating my parents migration journets but also kurdish families journeys in my publication. i am really happy with the outcome and i created a magazine publication focused on the word gurbet and feeling of living away from homeland. This at first wasnt my intention because i didnt realise that word meant missing homeland but through primary research, interviewing many people from turkish designers, turkish actors in cardiff and other creatives who had time to speak to me i realised they are not my focus group they dont share my journey and experience. I decided to i need to speak to the people who raised me and shaped my journey in a new country. At first i think i realised how important my dad was in my life because if he didn’t decide to come here to work and provide a better life us i would have never produced this publication and maybe even did this course. When i was interviewing him i heard so many stories and about his struggles which he never spoke to me about. I hope i have communicated his journey well in the publication. In addition, my mum also told me stories we never spoke about it and heard things that i thought she never thought about it. I think they both shaped this project in a very deep way and then the visualising section was up to me. After weeks of research, interviews, evaluations i decided i wanted to focus on gurbet. Then came the visual process this was the section that was the hardest, i spent weeks trying to create the design, find the best visual language and when i showed it to carol the response was not what i expected. I made mistakes and i had a problem with my design system it wasnt worked this was couple weeks before the submission i had to restart. I faced many problems this project because i was ambitious and i wanted to do something i have neevr done before.the last time i did editorial was in first year and i had mininal knowledge and skill yet in my final major i created a publication that is so in-depth and i poured all of the knowledge i learnt in the last 3 years. Im really happy i pushed myself and made this self directed project which i even wrote the small articles myself, communicated struggles and stories. I faced problems at the beginning emailing designers i didnt hear back from them for weeks. After firs set of interviews i realised they are not the audience i needed, they views and beliefs didnt fit my project so i focused on another group of audience which was my parents. So i spent more time arranging zoom calls, doing the interviews, writing the transcribes then evaluating the outcomes. Once i reflected on these outcomes, i then had to try figure out my position, what was i trying to communicate?
I then had the challenge of designing pages both in english and turkish because my parents chose to communicate in turkish as they explained themselves better. This was hard at points as it was heavy text and i wanted the designs to be really modern and spacious. However i think the final design does look really good, i am really happy with the outcome and i also spent hours correcting all of the alphabet as the keyboard was in english changing each letter to correct turkish letter.
Lastly, Covid was also in our life and i did all of this work in lockdown, we all did get used to it but as everyone in the world it was still challenging at times and i wish we wasn’t able to experience a normal third year such as doing fundraising and having a real graduate show.
Overall, I am really pleased with this project, i pushed myself to the limits and worked day and night to try and make this publication the best thing i have ever done. i wanted to make my family proud and i am really happy with the outcomes. I developed my confidence with speaking to designers artists, arranging meetings, evaluating and creating a self directed project which all of the work belongs to me.
Busra Yildiz 