Zine: My 20-minute rule for movies

“My 20-minute rule for movies” is about how I don’t feel guilty when I stop a movie I don’t enjoy. I give any movie a fair chance, but I’m okay turning it off if it’s not for me.

I made this zine in Canva. It’s 12 pages, printed in black and gray scale on orange paper.

A small orange booklet is titled My 20-minute rule for movies with a film reel design on the corners. Page 1 of the zine with text about someone's movie preferences and their approach to deciding if they want to continue watching a movie. An open orange booklet features the text watching movies. An orange zine titled My 20-minute rule for movies is decorated with film strip graphics. A hand is holding an orange zine with the text My 20-minute rule for movies on it.

Zine: How to Deal with Small Talk

“How to Deal with Small Talk” is a collection of tips for how to handle small talk conversations.

Maybe you’re like me and small talk drags you down. And maybe, like me, you have to put up with it anyway. Hopefully this zine can help.

This zine is printed in full color. I made the background pages using blue, purple, and red inks. Some pages have digital illustrations. All the text is typed.

It might be difficult to tell from the photos, but I tried a new page size for this zine, and I like it! A 12-page zine, printed double-sided on one 8.5x11-inch sheet of paper. The finished zine is about 3.5 inches high x 4 inches wide and bound with staples. And these dreamy cotton candy colors are on every page.

Glorious.

A zine titled How to Deal with Small Talk: a practical guide. A zine page with encouragement to pretend to be a person who likes small talk, set against a colorful background. A pastel-colored zine page displays the phrase Leave them with a sense of mystery. A hand holds a zine titled How to Deal with Small Talk: a practical guide. A zine titled How to Deal with Small Talk is placed on a textured surface.

Original or the clone

The Philly Zine Fest is accepting submissions for their Anthology zine. I made a collage with a bit of text I’ve been waiting to use somewhere.

The background is photocopied aluminum foil (for real!). I simply cut a piece of aluminum foil and made a copy of it. Then I crinkled the aluminum foil a bit and made another copy. That became the background for this page.

The woman’s face and hands are stock photos taken by Ospan Ali, available on Unsplash. The text is something I wrote a while ago and hadn’t found a place for…until now. 😉

This collage is a very different style for me, and I really like how it came out! The great thing about submitting to zines is that there’s room to experiment. It feels like low stakes, since it’s only one page.

A collage of fragmented human faces with text overlays reflecting on the concept of identity and originality.

Halloween collage

I contributed a page to Webs Across the Campfire, vol. 2, a special Halloween zine from Vlasinda Productions. Copies are available in their shop.

For my page, I wanted to make a collage. I had paper from my ink color experiments to work with. I cut these into shapes for clouds, a moon, and pumpkins.

Paper collage elements for a moon, purple clouds, spider webs, and pumpkins.

For the spider webs, I drew on black cardstock with a white gel pen. Then I photocopied the webbing, so I had sections to work with.

Here’s the finished page, with text I printed and glued on, a clip art house I modified, and black cardstock for the hill.

A silhouette of a haunted house with glowing windows is set against a purple sky with a large moon, surrounded by pumpkins and spider webs, accompanied by text about fear and knowledge.

How to lay out a zine in Canva

When I worked on my zine, Timers for Travelers, I finished the writing first. I knew I wanted illustrations throughout the zine, some hand-drawn and some digital. I decided to lay out the zine in Canva so that I could combine text, digital elements, and hand-drawn elements.

I’m really happy with how the zine came out, so I want to document my process. This is less a tutorial of Canva and more a walk-through of how I used it to put together my zine.

Canva is a free tool for graphic design. Although there are paid tiers, everything in this post was done with the free version. You can use Canva directly in an internet browser and there are apps you can download, too. If you haven’t used Canva before, you’ll need to create a free account.

Create a new file in Canva

Click on the Create a new design button and then click on Custom size. Enter the dimensions for your zine pages. For example, a quarter page zine would be 4.25 inches wide x 5.5 inches high. This file becomes your working file.

Make your zine

Make the pages of your zine with whatever method works for you. You can write text directly in Canva. I find it easier to do all my writing first in a word processor (I use Google Docs) and then copy and paste text into Canva.

Canva has a lot of graphic elements and images you can use for free. All the photos available in Canva are stock images from Pexels and Pixabay, and they are royalty-free.

Since you can upload images into Canva, you can draw on paper and scan pages. Then upload your drawings into Canva, and add them to your working file.

Note: Add page numbers last! If you’re making pages and don’t know what order they’re going to be in yet, don’t number pages. Instead, add page numbers after you have pages arranged in the order you want for the finished zine.

I like leaving my working file as is, like a draft. So when it’s time to print my zine, I make a copy of the working file (File » Make a copy). This becomes the print file.

Since the pages will be printed on 8.5 x 11-inch paper, cut, folded, and stapled, they need to be arranged in the correct order for printing.

To figure out the print order of the pages, I make a mock-up version of the zine with scrap paper. There are lots of ways to do this. Here’s how I figure out page order.

Go to the print file in Canva and rearrange the pages for printing. You can drag and drop pages or use the up and down arrows above each page to change where they are.

When I’m moving a lot of pages around, I like working in grid view. Click on the button in the bottom right of the screen that looks like a stack of papers with a number on it.

Screenshot of a zine layout in grid view in Canva.

When you’re done arranging pages, download the print file as a PDF. Click on the Share button (top-right). Then click on Download. For “file type,” choose “PDF Print.”

Open the PDF file on your computer. Go to print settings. Find the option for pages per sheet, and change this to 4. This will print 4 of your zine pages on one 8.5 x 11 piece of paper. Make sure two-sided printing is selected.

Print your zine. Cut the pages in half horizontally and then fold them. If you ordered the pages correctly in Canva, then the pages should be in the correct order when you assemble them as a booklet.

How to figure out page order for printing zines

How do you arrange zine pages so they print in the correct order? There are lots of ways to do this, depending on the size of your zine and the number of pages. Here’s one method for quarter-page zines.

Shout-out to Ryan at Pocket Thoughts. His method for printing quarter-page zines is the first one I learned. What I have below is similar to the way he does it.

Here’s how I determine page order for printing zines.

This example is with a quarter-page zine where the cover is blue cardstock and the interior pages are standard white copy paper.

A hand holding Timers for travelers zine. The zine cover is blue paper. The title is printed in black. A pattern of overlapping circles is behind the title

Printing a quarter-page zine on 8.5 x 11-inch paper means that you have 4 zine pages on the front of the sheet of paper and 4 zine pages on the reverse side of the sheet. So that you don’t have (unintentional) blank pages, your total number of zine pages should be a multiple of 4.

I make a paper dummy (aka mock-up) to figure out the page order. The process might be difficult to follow in writing, so I made a video explaining my method. The rest of this post is the method written out.

Watch the video on YouTube

To make the mock-up, I use scrap paper that’s the same size as what the actual zine will be printed on (8.5 x 11 sheets of paper). If you’re going to have a different paper for the cover, you can use a different color of scrap paper or just mark the paper somehow so you know that’s the cover.

Cut the 8.5 x 11-inch pages in half horizontally.

A sheet of paper with a horizontal line of dashes across the middle of the paper.

Then fold the half-sheets vertically and put them together as a booklet. You should have the same number of pages as what you want your finished zine to be. Zines with 16 pages are common, so that would be the covers plus 12 interior pages.

Don’t staple the pages since you’ll be taking them apart anyway.

Label the front cover, back cover, and interior pages.

A booklet with a green cover. Handwritten text says, front cover.

Take the pages apart, unfold them, and lay them out as if they were 8.5 x 11-inch sheets of paper. You’ll have groupings with 2 half-sheets. Then you can see how the zine pages should be ordered for printing. Flip the half-sheets over to see which zine pages would be on the reverse side of the page. This will show you how to arrange zine pages for double-sided printing.

Auto-generated description: A blank piece of paper is folded with numbers 12, 1, 10, and 3 written in the quadrants.

Depending on the number of pages in your zine or if you want to use a different type of paper for the cover, you may end up with a half-sheet on its own. In this case, for the print layout you can copy and paste the top half of the sheet to the bottom half. So on the 8.5 x 11-inch sheet of paper, the top half would be the same zine pages as the bottom half.

Take notes so you remember the page order. These can be rough since they’re just for reference when you’re arranging pages in layout.

I use “1A” and “1B” to indicate that’s one sheet of paper, front side (1A) and back side (1B). Then “2A” is the front of the second sheet of paper and “2B” is the back of the second sheet of paper.

A piece of paper features four diagrams labeled 1A, 1B, 2A, and 2B, each divided into four sections with text inside them.

As long as you figured out the sequence correctly, you’ll be able to print and assemble your zines in the correct page order.

Zine: Timers for travelers

“Timers for travelers” is a 20-page zine about time travel. It includes:

  • Why timers are important to time travelers
  • Tips and warnings for traveling through time
  • Time travel methods
A hand holds a blue zine titled Timers for Travelers and other thoughts about time travel. Circular designs are above and below the text.

Pages were made with a combination of hand-drawn illustrations, digital elements, and typed text.

The zine measures 5.5 inches high x 4.25 inches wide (quarter-page zine). The cover is blue cardstock. Interior pages are printed in black and white on 24lb white paper. The zine is hand-folded and bound with staples.

An open zine, displaying a passage about how time travelers may lose their sense of time. A zine spread with time travel tips and an ad about a career in time traveling. An open zine with a page that features a constellation drawing with a poem and time travel tips. Two copies of Timers for travelers lying on a yellow surface.

Zine: Everyday Time Travel

“Everyday Time Travel” is about ordinary moments that feel like time moves differently than normal.

A hand is holding a small zine titled Everyday Time Travel with a decorative geometric pattern.

Out of the zines I’ve made so far, this one probably came together the fastest, from the initial idea to the finished zine.

I made the backgrounds with scrapbook paper, and I added some details with fineliner pens. Then I wrote the text on white paper, tore out pieces, and glued them over the scrapbook paper. I like how all the colors and patterns came together.

Here are the interior pages:

A vintage-style page spread with orange paper, a retro telephone, and a message about time slowing down on Friday afternoons or when on hold. A zine spread with a poetic quote about quiet moments with snowflake patterns and yellow and blue backgrounds. A textured purple background with musical notes. Handwritten text describes how time and memory interact with music, emphasizing the effects of playing songs on repeat and singing verses out of order.

And the back cover:

A hand is holding a the back cover of a zine with a thank you message.

Zine: Questions to ask yourself, part 3

“Questions to ask yourself: Part 3” is a hand-drawn mini zine with thoughtful questions and illustrations.

A mini zine titled Questions to ask yourself: Part 3. The subtitle says, Moods change with context. The zine is printed on white paper with black text. A page spread with handwritten text that says, Which do you enjoy more--starting or finishing? The drawing on the left page is a ball of scribbles. The drawing on the right page is neat rows of squares. A page spread with handwritten text that says Which do you find more difficult--jumping in or letting go? An illustration on the left page shows two wavy lines that then intersect into a double-helix on the right page. Near the right edge of the page, the lines separate.

This is part 3 in a series.

Three mini zines titled Questions to ask yourself Parts 1, 2, and 3 are arranged against a bright green background.

Zine: Vignettes From Camelot

“Vignettes From Camelot” includes glimpses into the lives of Arthurian characters: Merlin, Morgana, Arthur, and an unnamed messenger.

The zine is 16 pages long with 4 original stories and hand-drawn illustrations inspired by nature and magic. It’s printed in black and white. I couldn’t decide on a blue or white cover, and neither could my Instagram poll. 😂 So I made both versions.

Two copies of a zine titled Vignettes From Camelot feature a drawing of a sword in a stone on the cover. One zine has a white cover and the other zine has a blue cover.

The stories in this zine started as a series of tweets I wrote a few years ago. My original idea was to write 10 tweets in a thread and have that be one story about people in Camelot. I never finished that, but I took the ideas I had for Merlin, Arthur, Morgana, and a messenger and fleshed them out into these vignettes.

A zine page featuring a table of contents on the left, with a story titled The Messenger on the right, discussing a young girl's development of a keen sense of truth.

I drew the illustrations by hand using black and gray markers and pens. I wasn’t sure which illustrations would go with which stories, so I drew each page individually. Here are a few of the original illustrations.

Two pieces of paper feature artistic drawings, one with black wavy lines and the other with a stone castle. Around the pages, a market, a pen, and brush pen are place on the table. Two different intricate pen drawings, one depicting a forest and the other abstract wavy lines with dots. Various pens and markers are place around the pages.

When I finished all the illustrations, I scanned them so that I could do the layout digitally.

I used Canva to lay out the text and illustrations. I made many of the illustrations semi-transparent so that the text over them was readable. In some cases, I put white boxes behind the text, so that the words stood out without adjusting transparency on the illustration. Here are two of the pages in Canva.

Two pages of the zine. The left page has an illustration of a castle wall with flags. Black and white text boxes cover part of the castle. The right page has a story about a young girl, with wavy lines in the background.

After I laid out all the pages, I did a few test prints to see how everything looked on paper. I made a some adjustments, and then printed several copies for my Etsy shop.