Get To Know: The Whimsical World Of Multidisciplinary Designer Max Mollison. VIVA Magazine Interview

I did an interview for VIVA Magazine to celebrate the launch of their shiny new gloss magazine Viva Volume One and the launch of the glossy Augmented Reality filter I created for them. Read the full interview here - www.viva.co.nz/article/magazine/multidisciplinary-designer-max-mollison/ where I talk fashion design, zine making and facilitating open dialogue around men’s mental health. And read a small snippet from the interview below.

What was the response like to the zines you made during lockdown?

The response was really good! During lockdown, I made Isolation Zine. I reached out to the internet and asked everyone to get involved with the creation of this zine.

We were all experiencing the feeling of isolation (somewhat still are) at the same time and I wanted to know how everyone was managing it. I wanted everyone to show me and then I made it into something wonderful. The world was in need of a creative outlet to vent their anxieties and frustration about our current position. I supplied a menu of creative tasks to get people started. Things like: write a list of your daily quarantine schedule or menu; draw or describe what you’re excited to do when quarantine is over; or write a Haiku about how you’re feeling during quarantine - things like that.

I then asked the internet to Interpret them in whatever way they wanted. People sent drawings, poems, notes, photos, videos, screenshots, and scribbles and I artistically designed them into a zine about our collective quarantine experience. It was a very emotional but cathartic experience to receive and design everyone's submissions. There was a lot of Tiger King, food and underwear selfies.

What I discovered I enjoyed most about creating Isolation Zine was interpreting someone's poem or stories into typographic works of art. This discovery has led me to the next zine project that I am currently taking submissions for, Secret 2020 Zine. It will be comprised of typographic art based on secret confessions.

Using an anonymous confession portal on my website I am asking people to submit a sentence, a paragraph, a story or a few words. Then I will turn the secret confessions into typographic word art posters and design them into a zine about our secret impulses, regrets, ambitions, behaviours, discontent and funny experiences. There are no rules and it is completely anonymous. They submit the words and I deal with the artistic consequences. I am excited to see the outcome.