The John Vol #1

The John Vol #1

Overview

Overview

Overview

The John Vol #1 is a zine that is dedicated to the ecosystem that is bar bathrooms. A safe space for free expression and graffiti, debauchery, or a quiet break from the loud bar noises, I find bar bathrooms to be fascinating. You never know if you are going to open the door to a newly renovated, millennial white, single stall room, or a thrashed, scribbled on, dim lit, sticky mess. This zine is here to represent the beauty one can find in those thrashed bathrooms, and to talk about a rarely discussed culture (of course with humor).

The John Vol #1 is a zine that is dedicated to the ecosystem that is bar bathrooms. A safe space for free expression and graffiti, debauchery, or a quiet break from the loud bar noises, I find bar bathrooms to be fascinating. You never know if you are going to open the door to a newly renovated, millennial white, single stall room, or a thrashed, scribbled on, dim lit, sticky mess. This zine is here to represent the beauty one can find in those thrashed bathrooms, and to talk about a rarely discussed culture (of course with humor).

Approach

Approach

Approach

I went barhopping, with a dedicated friend, around Chicago for a night, and tried to scope out the most interesting areas of each bathroom we visited. We put a cut up green ping pong ball in front of the camera flash to achieve a sickly green color, and utilized our fish eye lens to make everything extra disorienting. Anything written on, textured, or destroyed was fair game, and to bring some authenticity to the zine, the cover photos were created physically. I scanned in collaged elements, hand wrote captions and pull quotes, crossed out page numbers, and rotated grids all to honor the feeling of the spaces.