I’m working on a mini zine about social media. I can’t decide if I want to hand-write the text or type it, so I’m trying both ways.
I like typing text in zines because then it’s definitely readable. It’s easy to edit.
I like the look of handwritten zines, but it’s more effort to keep the text legible and spaced correctly on the page.
So we’ll see.
I spent almost 3 hours yesterday on Children of Immigrants, a contributor zine I’m putting together about immigrant experiences.
Submissions make up 26 pages of the zine. I need 28 pages (a multiple of 4) for printing, so I made 2 pages to finish out the zine.
I designed the covers, too. First I tried making a collage by hand and leaving room to add text in Canva. Well, I cut out bits of scrapbook paper and tried a few arrangements without gluing anything down. It looked really messy and blah. I didn’t like it. So I tried making the cover in Canva instead and that went much better.
Today I’m going to do a final proofread and final layout check, and then I can send the pages off for printing!
I’m working on the layout for “Children of immigrants” in Canva. Yesterday, I added everyone’s submissions and that took me to 26 pages! Printing requires a page count that is a multiple of 4 (unless you intentionally leave blank pages), so that means I have to make 2 pages to finish out the zine. I already was planning on one page, so I’ll see what I come up with for a second page. Maybe some kind of collage.
I have to do the cover design, too. I’ve been playing with a couple ideas but nothing settled yet.
I’m working on a zine about my favorite writing advice. It’s a quarter-page zine, meaning four zine pages will fit on one sheet of paper.
The most complicated part of making quarter-page zines is the print layout.
If you make the zine pages in order, you have to reshuffle them so that they print in the correct sequence.
If you don’t want to reshuffle, then you have to make the pages out of order. That may or may not work for you.
It doesn’t work for me.
So what I’m doing is working in two Canva files. One is my “working file” and sized for the finished zine page size (4.25 inches x 5.5 inches). When I finalize the pages, I’m going to export them as images.
Then the second Canva file is my “print file” and sized at 8.5 inches x 11 inches. I added guides to divide the pages into quarters. I labeled the page numbers so that the zine will print in the correct sequence. Then I’ll add each zine page (as an image) to this print file.
It’s not necessarily a difficult process, but it does feel like extra steps and extra time. And I haven’t been able to simplify from here.
I should mention I did try downloading all the zine pages as a PDF and then printing 4 pages per sheet. This printing method leaves gaps between each page, so there’s extra white space around each page. What I’m doing in the print file in Canva doesn’t leave any gaps.
I finished the submission for that local zine. I think it’ll come out in March, so I’ll post about it when it’s available.
I typed up the quotes I gathered for my zine on writing advice. The document is three and a half pages long, and that’s before I add commentary for each quote. So I may end up cutting some quotes.
The theme has been shifting a bit.
Originally, I wanted to focus on tips for writing online. I started gathering quotes and the content felt sparse. So I broadened to gathering tips for any kind of writing. Now the quotes are a mix of writing online, writing fiction, and writing in general. Maybe it feels like a mishmash. I’ll get a better feel for it when I start adding commentary.