Zine Experimentation

I want to make a first prototype zine, just to see how the format works and what can be done with it. I found a website with 3 different ways to fold a zine, and gave them a go with printer paper. The three types are 8-page (the most common way to fold zines), 16-page, and Turkish map fold.

My favourite is the 8-page as it seems the most practical and easy to navigate,

I then put together some placeholder text (excerpts from my blog posts) and family photos to make a rough zine, which I compiled on Word.

https://video.wixstatic.com/video/d61787_79a0f89d7438472cb223ff5d78914727/1080p/mp4/file.mp4

Reflection:

I quite like this zine, although the images didn't print to the edge of the page which is annoying. I like the simple layout I chose, although I would have liked a few more pages to show off my work. I think the middle page is really cool because of the two wedding photos next to each other, and I also really love the composition of the back cover. I'm not a fan of the front page, and I think this is because it's in colour and the rest of the zine is greyscale. I should have chosen a colour/tonal palette for the whole zine, but I don't think it matters too much for a practice zine.

I decided to make a 16-page zine too, but I didn't like how slow and frustrating it was to format the images on Word for the 8-page zine, so this time I printed out the images first and put them on with blu tac. This let me arrange and rearrange everything as I wanted, although I didn't like how small everything was. I managed to make two 16-page zines, one for the Irwins and one for the Reads. This gave me an idea for my outcome, as I could have a zine for each side of the family as my final pieces. Here's what I made:

https://video.wixstatic.com/video/d61787_c930171bbffc4c38a4293e2326431294/1080p/mp4/file.mp4

https://video.wixstatic.com/video/d61787_b10e886e59e84e2c851b349a6acffd47/1080p/mp4/file.mp4

Reflection:

I really liked working with physical cut outs, as well as having more pages to play around with. I didn't expect to be able to fill two zines, but I'm happy I did because it's encouraged me to think about making two zines for my outcome.

I also wanted to try the Turkish Map Fold, so I did an emulsion lift from the Polaroids from my shoot on Friday onto a square piece of cartridge paper, which I had folded diagonally. Once it had dried, I folded the paper into the Turkish Map fold, but this caused the emulsion to tear and flake off. I also don't think this way of folding works very well for a zine, but it was fun to experiment.

When I did the emulsion lift for the Turkish Map fold, I did another emulsion lift which I'm thinking of using for a cover when I do my bookbinding experimentation.