I love making Zines. The process of creating them is just so personal and they are, in my opinion, a beautiful form of miniature art. They have been used in the last few decades, particularly in America, as a way of publishing more controversial/edgy topics. These masterpieces may be small but they have proven to be an extremely powerful form of media.
For those of you who are unclear about what a Zine is, let me tell you that they are hard to define because they are so versatile. However ‘for all intensive purposes, a zine is a cheaply-made, cheaply-priced publication, often in black and white, which is mass-produced via photocopier and bound with staples’. (taken from urbandictionary) They aim to send a short and snappy message out to the world and one of the reasons they are so popular is their size, which means they are easy to distribute.
I decided to make a small collage zine for my friend Nina for her birthday. She loves (understatement of the century) the fashion designer Raf Simons so I decided to focus it around him. Since then Raf has decided to leave Dior and so this has become more of a memoir of his time there. I love how when creating a zine you can make it so personal. I think this is why they make such lovely presents.
One way to tie your zine together, i.e to give it continuity, is to repeat the use of certain patterns and images, reusing discarded ends of pictures, which will probably end up as strips, and to use a colour scheme for each double page spread. Of course if you don’t want to do any of this then you don’t have to, it is your vine so do as you please. You can be as creative as you want to be.
If you fancy making your own zine? I used Tavi Gevinson’s ‘How to Make a Zine’ Tutorial, which allows you to end up with an A6 sized zine. I really like this tutorial as it shows you how to make one with just a ruler, a cutting knife and an A3 piece of paper. I didn’t have any A3 paper when making this zine so I used A4 which meant the end product was quite dinky. I personally prefer a smaller zine as it more of a challenge to see how much you can fit onto the tiny pages.
Love Holly x