Getting back into making zines
Estimated reading time: 5 minutes
As the end of 2024 is in sight I thought I would wrap things up with going through the process of making my latest zine.
My first ever art fair I got to participate in was the Zine Happening in Ghent in 2022. As many of you might know, that experience basically started my career and eventually led to me running my own art fair Prente. I had to have zines to submit for my application and back in 2022 I only had made one zine before. I thought it would be a long shot to get in but I tried my best to crank out at least 2 more zines so I could at least apply. It was a daunting task but unexperienced that I was, I was unburdened with expectations of how good my work needed to be. I managed to finish everything in time and I enjoyed the experience immensely. As a cherry on the cake I managed to get in. Yaay!
Trial and error: mock up for the zine, testing different shapes
Over the past 2 years now, I have been growing as an artist and I feel that those zines I made years ago are not a accurate representation of my work anymore. This year I had plans on making more so I have gotten into the habit of keeping a little note book with me to write down any idea that comes floating in. That eventually resulted in me working on 4 zines at the moment, where I finished one just recently.
To get over the anxiety that comes with starting larger projects I wanted to start with a zine that was manageable in scope. A while ago I stumbled on this Instagram reel by German illustrator Anne Graete. I was immediately inspired by these folded pictures, or "klappbilder" in German, she makes. As with traditional zine making, she only uses one piece of paper, so I thought that those folded pictures would work well in the format of a zine.
Without a story in mind I let the medium dictate the flow of the zine, and used scrap paper to mock up sketches to see with what shapes I could come up with. Sketching out the designs directly onto paper, rather than working digitally first, was definitely the way to go since I could instantly test if the images would line up or not. Rather than starting with the biggest image on the inside of the zine, I worked my way inwards, that way it was easier to line up the drawings I made next.
Little gif of how the folding works in the final mock up
The zine’s focal point are the folds and how it opens up. This means that you are somewhat constricted in the shapes you can come up with that will still fit each layout even after folding. After some trial and error, I ended up with several animal characters each taking on a different shape by combining several animal legs and bodies. This eventually dictated the story and the design of the cover. In my zine I want to advocate against zoos and overall the locking up of animals. I wanted to represent all animals but I am not able to fit all animals that you can find in zoos into my zine. However by being able to make several new shapes and animals by flicking through the zine, it almost feels that there are more animals visually represented than there are drawings. As reader, can play around with all the shapes, creating more animals than that are drawn, emphasizing that no animal is left behind and never should call a zoo their home.
The final print version of the cover. Even though some part look upside down here eventually that would all line up.
Initially I wanted to do this zine as a riso print, but with the subject matter, I found painting with acryla gouache better fitting especially considering the texture it would give me. On top of that, lining things up with riso is already pretty hard when printing multiple colours on top of each other. The risk of misalignment on printing recto verso with riso was too big here. I’m glad I went with the gouache here, but I’m still eager to try and print another zine with riso in the future.
After the whole thing was painted I scanned in both sides of the mock up before I made my test folds. This was to ensure the folds wouldn’t be scanned in for the final design. Some tweaks were made and the text got added digitally for the final print. For the print size I went with an A3 even though the original mock up was made on an A4 piece of paper. Folded, the A3 piece becomes A6 which is an ideal reading size for most zines. An A4 that would become A7, this would be a cute mini zine format, but didn’t feel right for this project.
The inside of the zine.
In the end the printed zine didn’t line up a 100% how I wanted but I’m still proud of the result. The printed colours came out beautiful. In hindsight I should have done a lot more tests before sending it off to the printers, but as always I was rushing for a deadline to get it done before upcoming markets.
I had a lot of fun with this project and it reinvigorated my love for painting and zines, so I will definitely make another one soon. I hope that after reading this you want to give this sort of zine a try yourself.
And I guess that’s it for 2024! Can’t believe it’s been a year already of having this blog. I hope that you enjoyed this venture with me so far and that it has been of used to you as a reader. Hope you are having the best end of the year and I wish you a 2025 where your dreams may come true.
Thank you so much of sharing 2024 with me.
C.
