Everything You Need to Know About Making Your Own Zine

TUTORIAL | ARTS | HANGA / CRAFT

Written by Ilya Kurilyak (he/him) | @kurilyaak | Contributing Writer

1. What The Hell is a Zine?!!

Zine (pronounced "zeen") is a small self-published DIY magazine. Most zines look like a tiny book with any kind of art, pictures, text or collages in it, but I'd say a zine is whatever you want it to be.

The simplest tiny 8-page zine can be made out of a single sheet of A4 paper, and you can find tons of tutorials online on how to make one; however, I want to focus on making something a bit more complex than that! Today we'll be making an A6-size zine with a whole 24 pages in it! It won't be all that hard – I swear.

You will need…

Materials & Tools:

- 3 sheets of A4 paper

- stapler (small preferred)

- cheap paper trimmer

- an unloved eraser

- ruler

Digital software (suggestions):

- Art software: Clip Studio Paint / PaintTool SAI / Photoshop / Krita / Canva / Microsoft Paint

- Layout software: Adobe Acrobat / Google Slides / Canva / PowerPoint

2. What to make your zine about?

Now, whatever that inner perfectionist of yours is telling you - grabs you by the shoulders don't listen to them. Absolutely anything you care about, no matter how big or small it is, is a good topic for a zine. My favourite kind of zines are always ones about weird, personal topics and interests. Zines are a great field to share your creative work, personal experiences, political opinions and literally anything you can come up with! Some real examples are: "Top 10 of My Favourite Socks", "About Migraines", "Potty Stories", and personal favourite, "Screenshots of every time there's the word "whooshing" in the subtitles for the last episode of Twin Peaks". Why would someone make a zine about something like that? I don't know, but I'm really happy they did.

Dare to share something you're passionate about – and don't think too much about it! A rough, scrappy DIY aesthetic is a big part of zinemaking!

3. Making a rough A6 zine model

1. Get a single sheet of A4 paper and draw vertical and horizontal lines on the front in the middle using a ruler.

2. Gently align 2 more sheets of paper underneath it and cut along the vertical line using a paper trimmer (no worries if it looks kinda rough, it's only a layout model!).

3. Fold all three pages together in the middle aaand... Wow! You kinda have a zine already! If you're making your zine traditionally, you can already draw it on this model and scan it later. If your final zine will be drawn digitally, you can use it for a rough layout sketch! But most importantly - mark the pages, and don't staple it yet!

4. Now, after roughly sketching your zine on the model, unfold it back and put each sheet of paper into pairs - now you have a double-sided A4 printing layout for your zines! Swag!

4. Making Da Zine. Digitally and traditionally

 I'll say it again: Rough, scrappy and DIY is the way you should go about creating your zines. 

"Oh, but what if it makes no sense?! What if it's weird?! What if it looks like it was made by a child?!" Great! These aren't the kind of things you should worry about in the process. Be your true self, unapologetically. If you're making your zine traditionally,  use any materials you like: Pencils, pens, markers, paints, paper, stickers, pictures of your dog, peanut butter, ANYTHING!! The same goes for creating your zine digitally. Use Microsoft Paint. Use Canva. Use PowerPoint. Okay, if we're being fancy - I really love Clip Studio Paint EX for its zinemaking functions and 3D preview of your zine. It's quite costly though, so… Do your research… If you know what I mean... comically expressive winking.

5. Printing Layout

 For this part, if you’ve made your zine traditionally, scan each page of the zine to get it ready for digital assembling. When it comes to assembling your pages for printing, you don't actually put them in the order they show in your zine. That is because we're printing A4 sheets of paper, and then cutting and folding them into A6 pages using both sides. Remember that paper zine model we made earlier? Using Google Slides, Canva or PowerPoint, assemble your pages digitally exactly in the same order they appear on unfolded pairs of paper! Always do a black and white test printing before ordering the full batch - just to make sure everything looks right and is in the right order.

 Also, if you have Adobe Acrobat, it does the layout part for you! Convenient! But costly.

6. Printing Process

At this point, you have everything ready for printing! But what is the cheapest way to go about it, if you don't have a printer at home? Two words: Warehouse Stationery. Or any local print shop. I also like PrintOnline.co.nz (your ad could be here ahh). Cheapest 80GSM paper is perfectly fine for zines, but you can choose any paper type you want if you're feeling fancy! We're not doing it for financial gain anyway.

Very important printing settings - print double-sided, flip on the short side, otherwise your pages will be upside down on one side!

7. Stapling, White border on print

 Once you receive your printed sheets of paper, assemble them in the same way we did for the zine model earlier, up to step 3. Open the zine to page spread 12-13, and to avoid ruining your table with staple holes - put the zine in the centre of an eraser that isn't too dear to you. Put two staples closer to the edges of the paper - and your zine is ready! 

One important thing to mention is that when printing, your paper sheets will always come out with a thin white border around the edges. You can choose to ignore it, and it won't be noticeable if your zine has a white background, but I choose to carefully cut it with a paper trimmer.

8. Sharing your zines

Finally, you have your very own zine. Admire it. Be proud of it. Tell your zine you're proud of it. But most importantly, show it to other people! Share it online on social media or zine exhibitions! Give it away to random strangers on the bus! Yes, I actually did that and it worked out great!

Personally, my zinemaking journey would never start without Auckland Zinefest. Zinefests are zine markets that happen every half a year or so, and are a great opportunity to share your zines and socialise with other zinemakers. Participation is free of charge, and they're eager to accept everyone! No fancy set-up or a crazy collection of zines needed! An unexpected way to share your zines is at the Auckland Central Library. Bring your zines to the counter, and you can add them to their huge zine collection from all around Aotearoa and become a certified literature figure.

Hell, if you're feeling shy, just send them to me (@kurilyaak on Instagram)!

I hope this tutorial has been of great help to you, and I wish you lots of fun on your zinemaking journey!