Need zine crafting help!

[hellodreamymiku]

HI GUYS 

So I may have messed up a bit... I have 2 artworks due tomorrow and it's for an assignment that's 40% my grade. To provide some context, I decided to do 2 of my artworks like this; my theme is identity and I wanted to do the topic of "perfectly curated profiles" and "internet aesthetics" the first artwork is a pixel artwork that shows a "little miss perfect" in the frame of a computer as this perfect, happy girl from the 2000s. The second artwork is where I have my biggest problem with, I decided to make a zine for my second piece and I don't know how to make one honestly. I have only read zines about feminism and internet revival so far so I don't know how to tie the idea of different "identities" represented in a 6-10 page zine. I initially wanted to make a tiny collage pages of each popular aesthetic but again, I can't just copy off pinterest so those pictures have to be mine to begin with, which is pretty hard for me to produce :( And problem number two is that I don't know if I should make this in canva or by hand on paper. No matter which one I choose, it should be in an a4 paper format so that it's easy for the audience the read the zine and engage with it. Or of course, I can set up a screen in the exhibition and present it in a pdf format but I think I would lose points.

To sum things up, I don't know how to craft a zine, what should be the ratio of digital to handwriting be? should I make it on canva with the free to use collage items or should I look for another alternative? How do I make this artwork tie to theme of identity? I chose the medium of zines because it is usually to represent some identity to the world and raise awareness but I don't know about this one. Help it's due tomorrow I can't T-T I apologize if this topic is outside of the board discussion :(

[j]

a zine can look however you want it to look! there's no set definitions for how much text and art you should have. your zine could be:

- entirely text, with creatively designed backgrounds and fonts / spacing selected to match
- a flipbook of images
- a elaborate variation of types of text and images
- literally anything

one of my favorite (short) zines is this one, which varies heavily on design choice and is very text-heavy (because it needs to be!). there are recurring styles that crop up, but there's such a difference chapter-by-chapter. i think the point is that, if you put love and effort into your zine, it'll probably come across :P

[teatime]

this is unfortunately a very very late reply but i hope this is helpful for anyone else on melonland who is interested in making zines :>

both making a zine physically and producing it online are both viable if you need to do it quickly. if you wanted to produce a collage, using canva's free images is a hell of a lot quicker, but for future projects, if you had more time, you could certainly gather magazines/newspapers/whatever to draw from. arguably the easiest type of zine to make physically is the eight page zine, since it only requires scissors (or a careful tear). formatting a zine digitally to make sure it prints correctly is a little harder to figure out - the electric zine maker might make this more intuitive but i have not yet had the opportunity to complete a project there in full.    i would also really encourage to look up zine-making resources on your search engine of choice, lots of other people have compiled lists!

[CableCat]

Oof, I am very late to reply on this one. But I will anyway for future readers!

The simplest Zine to make is an 8-page folding zine made from one piece of paper. See here:

If you get a program like GIMP or Word, or maybe even LibreOffice, you can put dividing lines on a single sheet digitally to make the 8 sections, then add what you want to add to each "page"of the zine. Then print it, cut it, and fold it.

Use free graphics from Canva, or maybe from a site like Pixabay even for royalty free photos.