Zine

Introduction

Zines are small, self-made booklets with a long history. Zines, in various forms, have been around since the 1930s, when artists made science fiction "fan magazines." Today, they typically combine text and images to share information or viewpoints. Historically, they were reproduced for cheap using copy machines, now they are typically finalized and then printed from a computer.

How to make a zine

Getting started

Figure out your topic and themes for your zine.

Figure out your style: are you going to hand-draw and handwrite everything? Are you going to design it all on the computer? Are you going to do some combination of styles? Note that you don't need to be an amazing artist to make a cool zine with drawings! Check the drawing page for more information about drawing techniques for non-artists.

Layout

Zines can take on all kinds of formats, from accordion zines and stitch-bound booklets, to fold-out poster zines and online-only zines. Many beginners use two simple formats that are easy to craft yourself at home using printing paper:

Mini, eight-page folding zine

This folding zine format uses one piece of standard 8.5x11" computer paper, folded into eight rectangles. Each little rectangle represents one page of your zine. Remember that the pages won't be in sequential order when they're laid out flat as one piece of paper; you'll want to refer to the template.

Standard A5 booklet

If you want something larger, you can create a DIY booklet by combining a bunch of A4 paper and folding it in half (so that the left and right sides touch). The page numbers here can get confusing - when you're creating it, the pages aren't sequential, but programs like Adobe Indesign will make that problem easier (more information below).

You'll also need to think about how you'll bind this kind of booklet. You'll need a long-arm stapler to staple your pages vertically down the center of the booklet. Alternatively, you can use stitch-binding: fold your zine in half to make a crease and poke three holes in the fold. Using sewing thread or yarn, thread through the holes with a simple running stitch.

Drawing & writing on paper

Time to start putting your zine together! You can hand-draw and handwrite your whole zine or just parts of it.

We recommend using drawings rather than photos: simplified drawings are more clear and easy to understand than complex photos. Not an artist? Don't worry: you don't have to draw from scratch. Try some of these techniques:

Tracing

If you want to simplify a drawing, try tracing it. In the example below, we wanted to use an image of this house, which we found on Google Maps. But the tree is in the way and it's not a great photograph. Try printing the image, putting a plain sheet of paper on top, and tracing the outlines of the image with pencil or pen. Don't worry about being precise - part of the charm of a zine is the handdrawn style.

Diverted contour

Another drawing technique is the diverted contour, where you draw the contour of the subject in a single line, without looking at the paper. Keep your eyes on the original photograph that you're trying to replicate. The result will likely be funny and unexpected!

Lettering

If you don't want to draw objects, try creative ways to write either the headers or the bulk of the information in your zine. Can you make the text fit into shapes? Use colors? Use different styles? Play around with it.

Scanning your designs

You probably will want to get your zine onto the computer: either you want to combine hand-drawn and computer designs, or even if you made it entirely by hand, you'll need to have a way to print multiple copies.

This is where scanning comes in. The easiest way to scan is using the Adobe Scan application on your phone, although you can also use other scanning options like the flatbed scanner in the Adobe Studio. If you don't scan in your image, you'll have to do a lot of work to make your image look clean on the computer! Just taking a photo of the drawing won't give you a pure black and white image. We recommend scanning! If you can't scan, you can learn how to adjust your images in Photoshop using this guide.

This is what it looks like when you just take a photo on your phone of your drawing, and don't scan it.

This drawing was scanned using Adobe Scan

Drawings for zines work best if you use clear, clean, strong lines. It can be tempting to be sketchy in your drawings! We recommend if you do, you should trace over the drawing with a pen, and then erase the pencil lines, to get a nice, clean image.

To use Adobe Scan:

Download the Adobe Scan app in your phone's app store
Log in using your Clemson ID without the .g. (ex: user@clemson.edu)
Open the application
Hover your camera over your drawing: make sure you have good lighting, either near a window or with a lamp overhead. Turn on flash if you need to.
Press the camera button
Adjust the bounding box to make sure there is a rectangle around the drawing that you want to scan
Select Save PDF. Your scan doesn't save until you click this button.
Now you can either email the scan to yourself or you can find it in your Adobe Document Cloud by logging into your Adobe account on your computer. Now download the file to your computer and you're ready to go.

Computer designs

If you want to put together your zine on the computer, we recommend using Google Slides or Adobe InDesign.

Google Slides

Google Slides is a web-based platform that is a more simple version of Powerpoint. You might be more familiar with using Slides for presentations, but you can also make posters and storyboards by using a single slide and adjusting the size.

Slides is the best option if you need to work collaboratively with a group. It doesn't have all the bells and whistles of Powerpoint but most of those extra features are not needed.

slides.google.com

Google Slides Tutorial

Adobe InDesign

Adobe InDesign is one of Adobe's vector-based design programs. It is somewhat similar to Microsoft Word + Powerpoint, but more complicated. InDesign will give you much more control over your zine but there's a bit more upfront learning to get started. We recommend InDesign for any zines with multiple (printed) pages.

Adobe InDesign Tutorial

Printing & binding

If you are making a mini, single-page zine, you'll just need to print multiple copies. You don't have to worry about the order. Follow the directions above to fold, cut, and assemble your zine.

If you are making a booklet with multiple pages, and you used Adobe InDesign, you can use the Print Booklet feature. You find this under File > Print Booklet. In the Print Booklet window, choose the type of booklet you are printing. 2-up Saddle Stitch is perfect for printing a zine you’ll be folding in half and stapling. Before printing, check the preview tab in the Print Booklet window. If you see a pink rectangle, you need to change your layout. Click print settings and adjust the paper size and orientation as needed, then click OK. Make sure to change your printer settings so that you are printing double-sided with the paper flipping on the short edge.

If you made a booklet with multiple pages in Google Slides, there is no feature to automatically correctly print your booklet, so you'll have more work to assemble.

Examples

From My Modern Met

By Leo of Deskarga Groupo, from The Creative Independent

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