Some prefer to use A3 paper, which will make a zine that is exactly postcard-sized and therefore convenient for sending in the mail. A3 paper is 11. 69 x 16. 54 inches (29. 6 x 42 cm).
In other words, you are making a horizontal cut through the horizontal fold that doesn’t start at the edge of the page, but rather goes through the middle of the page up to the points where the left and right vertical folds intersect with the horizontal fold. Place a ruler along the horizontal fold and use it to make the cut so that the cut is straight. You can also fold it in half “hamburger” style and cut from the crease to the middle with scissors if you don’t have an X-Acto knife.
You have just finished creating the skeleton of the zine, which you will illustrate and add artwork to. You can just make this one zine if you wish, or use it as your master copy, which you will make copies of if you want to reproduce the zine. If you want to add more pages, you can cut paper to the exact size of the spread of the zine and staple the pages into the central spread of the zine where the binding would be on a regular book. You can also use two pieces of paper at the beginning by putting one sheet on top of the other and cutting and folding them simultaneously. This will give you double the amount of pages.
Inspiration can come from almost anywhere. Read the news, revisit favorite books and movies, or look to other artists for inspiration. Sometimes a whole wealth of ideas can come from just one doodle or sentence. Try doodling or writing in a journal to start generating ideas.
If you do decide to ask others to contribute to your zine, make sure that they are reliable! It may be a good idea to install a deadline for contributions so that you aren’t waiting on their pages indefinitely.
Upward arrows help you to keep track of what direction the text and images should be in. When you fold the zine out, you should see that the arrows on the sections of the paper are pointing down, meaning that you need to place your art upside down for it to appear right-side up when folded back into a booklet. If you plan on adding your art with the booklet folded, you can skip this step.
Keep in mind that if you are planning on making your zine into a series, the title should be the same for each issue. Include the theme of the zine, if you have one, in a smaller font either above or below the title of the zine. Also try to incorporate a picture into the cover page. Pictures add visual interest, and do a good job of pulling the viewer in and making them want to read more.
If you are having other people contribute to the zine, either lend the master copy of the zine to them so that they can fill in their pages, or give them the dimensions of the page. Then they can produce artwork at that size and either give the artwork to you in person or scan it and send it to you so that you can print it out and paste it inside the zine. Each page of the zine is made of a folded-over section of paper, rather than a single sheet like a regular book. Because of this, you can decide if you want to cover the inside of the zine with artwork as well. This artwork will be hidden unless the reader unfolds the zine into a sheet and flips it over. Make sure you do not use a marker that could bleed through the page. This art could be something funny, like a rickroll [13] X Research source or pretty art as shown.
Following the steps above to fold and cut a mockup of your zine will give you the dimensions of each zine page. Use these dimensions to correctly set up your computer document. To create a zine on the computer, create a document that is the size of the zine paper you will be printing on. Then divide the document into a grid, with each section representing one page of your zine. Work on your artwork and text on the computer, fitting them into each page and orienting them in the right direction. Then print the page and use the same steps to cut and fold it as you did for your dummy.
Making copies of your zine helps you to reach a wider audience and also produces a product that has a more finished and less handmade look than the master copy. Make sure to use a copier that has a scanner, rather than a copier in which the paper will have to go through the machine to get copied. Because of the various multimedia that you may have used to make your zine, there is a chance that the zine could jam this type of copier, which would also damage your master copy.
You may want to make one test copy to make sure that the zine is copying correctly before you print several copies.
