Goodpush Member

hey community!

We're going to make zines tomorrow with Women Skate the World Amsterdam. It fits into our lesson line of doing small and/or fun things with a big reach/impact, and we want to give the girls a voice through this zine which they can give to their family etc. 

The girls will get magazines, posters, markers, stickers, glue, disposable cams etc to decorate sheets and make photo's. In the end we'll collect all the material and make it into a zine. 

Just wanted to post a question around this, does anyone have tips on the further process of putting it together/printing it? I guess I could just go and ask around at local printshops if they want to help to print, but wondering if there are companies/internet printing services/..?? that are approachable to help out with printing or covering the costs? 

Best, Nanja

Comments

Hey Nanja, I don't know about online services that will sponsor printing but it's definitely worth talking to a local copy shop – maybe they would be willing to give you a discount. Also, if you plan to print/photocopy in black and white rather than colour that will be relatively cheap (like 1/5 the price of color), and many copy shops have staplers there that you can use which is also much cheaper than paying for stapling to be done by someone else. 

Sounds like a super fun project! Maybe someone else has tips about printing options?

 

I would recommend that you provide the sized material for each contributor's layout on the size or proportional to the final layout page size. If you want your contributors to provide art and editorial at a particular size, those dimensions should be clearly communicated... I'd even provide the actual pages in their pre-designed state to help communicate this important design constraint. (If you receive submissions and do all of the design work yourself, you won't need to worry about this as much but you WILL be spending a lot more time preparing your contributor's submissions.)

The idea is basically this: Let's say your 'zine is going to be 5.5-inches by 8-inches once it's all folded up and stapled. This book can be made by designing four pages on one piece of letter-sized paper (8.5 x 11 inches); two pages side-by-side on one side of the panel and two pages on the other.

You can create a letter-sized 'zine by designing your spreads on tabloid-sized sheets. A tabloid sheet, (11 x 17 inches), folds in half into a letter-sized sheet, (8.5 x 11 inches).

I recommend that you start with a mockup of the 'zine you hope to make. Let's say you're going for a 16-page pamphlet. This can be accomplished by using four panels that are folded, nested, and stapled together. Use blank sheets to make your "model" book and write the number of that page big in the middle of each panel. After you've written the pages on everything, disassemble the mockup and unfold the pages. Now you should see which pages "back up" with which pages... and you can now begin laying out your content knowing which bits are meant to go where.

One GREAT way to learn is to do it incorrectly a few times. :)

 

Those are very important tips from Pete about making a test copy and having a bit of trial and error.

You can also make a 12 or 16 page zine out of one piece of regular paper -- which is obviously super cheap in terms of printing. Here's a step by step guide with photos, and here's a how-to printout for a slightly different version. 

16 page zine example

Please keep us updated on how this goes for your group!