Do something that matters to you. It’s a waste of time to just throw stuff together you don’t care about, and, to be honest, it’s a lot of wasted work if you don’t end up proud of it. We take a lot of care in choosing themes and submissions and putting it all together, so the best advice I (Clare) can give is to be honest to your ideas as much as you’d expect your submitters to be honest to theirs. Also be kind. Make friends. Don’t limit yourself. HAVE FUN.
Get one to read in the hammock in the backyard! or two to share it with someone! or three and have an OTC party zine team style (tip: cheeto’s are great and all but cheese fingers + zine = eek) (we learned that last week, folding) (don’t worry, no crumbs were left in your copy)!!! This issue is pretty surely the best yet; people kicked some serious ass with the theme and we can’t wait to get its beauty into your hands.
WE DID IT AGAIN!
Pre-orders are now officially open for our third issue, Echo.
After sifting through another batch of submissions, we are thrilled to feature 26 awesome creators who took the theme ‘echo’ and brought their own spark to it. Once again, we have a beautiful group of art and writing that will leave you inspired.
Echo won’t officially ship out until May 31st, but get your order in soon. They cost $5 for domestic orders, $7 for Canada and $10 for all other international orders. This includes shipping!
As always, thank you so much for your overwhelming support and general enthusiasm over this project. You guys are the best!
HEY GUYS IT’S OUR FAVORITE LITTLE ZINESTER CLARE’S BIRTHDAY THIS FIFTH DAY OF MAY SO LET US ALL CELEBRATE HER EXISTENCE AND LOVE HER FOREVER :)
Today we got real cozy with Renee while ordering the paper for echo’s cover.
Be checking your emails for letters to find out if you have been accepted or rejected! Pre-orders will be opening up next week.
Sure!
Home’s track listing
1- whirring (innerpartysystem remix) by the joy formidable
2 - juicy by the notorious B.I.G.
3 - nine by la dispute
4 - twilight galaxy by metric
5 - summer home by typhoon
6 - not quite happiness by good old war
7- come back when you can by barcelona
8- hair pool by defiance, ohio
9 - the world you love by jimmy eat world
10 - pins and needles by mute math
11- strictly game by harlem shakes
12 - clouds crash by the matches
13 - boston by the dresden dolls
14 - 3 rounds and a sound by blind pilot
15 - upper deck san diego by joie de vivre
16 - we are not a football team by minus the bear
17 - food is still hot by karen o and the kids
18 - the world at large (modest mouse cover) by broken social scene
(weirdly, many of the tracks we individually chose were also tracks that the other two thought hard about including. ZINE TEAM VIBIN’!)
I (Clare) use the heck out of InDesign. If you don’t have access to it, you can totally figure it out by hand and then use something as simple as Word. (Even with InDesign I made a mini mock-up with notebook paper for space just because I didn’t know what I was doing. It helps.) We send our final file to our lovely printer as a pdf, which requires an extension to exporting as a postscript file from “print booklet” (this is really technical and maybe doesn’t apply), and then re-export using Adobe Distiller to get the pdf. The double-sided pages is where print booklet comes in handy.
For actual layout, basically once we’ve decided on what pieces to include, I make a folder of everything and then start putting things together. I try to connect things that have something going in the same direction, whether in content, the way it looks on the page, etc. I just feel it out and take my time, rearrange constantly. Once I find the pieces I forgot to include (inevitable) we have a meeting and go through to see what can be changed; what photo(s) deserve a whole spread, which poems can be placed more centered on the page, etc. Then I go through and format all the bios according to final order of appearance, proofread it all, and send it away.
Once we get the printed pages, we take the top of the stack of pages per issue, fold in half, and then put the next folded page around that one. Staple using a long-arm stapler since 5.5 inches is too big for a standard stapler, and voila. Done.
Best advice I can give you is keep in mind zines aren’t supposed to be perfect and really, the whole aesthetic is meant to be as open as you want. Don’t limit yourself to having the right programs or even having access to amazing printing. Just have a good time.
