the purdy ladies

A zine highlighting the lives of four badass women.

The Purdy Ladies Project was done in collaboration 3 other class mates as well as the lovely ladies at the Purdy Pavilion Care home centre, Lilian, Betty, Jan and Prunella. The Purday ladies girl gang was formed under the perspectives project run by the health & design lab at Emily Carr University. We were tasked with telling the stories of a select group of residents. We worked with these 4 ladies for 3 months, learning their all about their lives and their personalities.

After learning a bit about these women, we knew immediately that we had to start a kick a** girl gang. These are some of the most inspirational women I have met, each overcoming their own adversary, be it fighting racism, fighting for lgbtq+ rights, helping at risk youth or crushing gender stereotypes. With our girl gang we thought the only appropriate that we lean into the punk zine aesthetic.

My role: On top of us all gathering the stories of these ladies we split up our duties. I worked on our art direction and aesthetic as well as the illustrations. As the project evolved I also took on the layout of each booklet.

A requirement of the project was that our booklets needed to be risograph printed- Risograph printing is a cross between a photocopier and screen printing. The Riso prints one color at a time in bright, vibrant colors. To achieve this you need a “master” copy in black and white for each colour you want to print. This is where creating layouts can become challenging, but I think of it like a fun puzzle.

We wanted to make sure it was clear that each of these women had their own personalities in the group. So we made patches, stickers and patterns to express their uniqueness.

Lilian’s patch was a take on the black power fist. Growing up in South Africa during the time of the Apartheid and then moving to Canada, Lilian dedicated a lot of her time to fighting racial injustice.

Jan’s patch is a megaphone with an equal love symbol which represents her activism work, particularly in relation to the lgbtq+ community.

Betty’s patch is DNA strands with a beaker growing a plant which represents her education in chemistry as well as a plant for her love of gardening.

Prunella’s patch is a loving hand inside of a home which represents the 13 at risk youth she fostered while working on the downtown east side of Vancouver.