Make-it-Yourself Zines

Making a zine is a fun way to create a marketing tool to promote your art. You can create a stunning zine with collage, doodling and photographs.
To make a simple eight page booklet just take four sheets if A4 paper and fold them in half.
Decide what you want on each page before you start to make the zine. You will need a front cover and back page. Perhaps your first inside page could be about you or an index of what's inside. Each subsequent page is a blank canvas for you to fill. Here are some examples of how you can fill them:
> A "how to make..."
> Tips and techniques
> Featured artist/designer
> Where to find...
> Useful sites & blogs
> Buy my stuff
Write up the "copy" on a separate piece of paper and start collating the images. You can cut words from magazines, print off images of your work, cut up patterned wallpaper and gift wrap.
Position all your collages pieces on the page BEFORE you start gluing. You may find that some of your ideas were too big for the page or that you have too many gaps in your design. Gaps can be filled with doodling or drawing. If your page looks too bland create a patterned background from gift wrap and then glue your images on top.
Test out your design by photocopying the page as you go along. Once your zine is printed out you will see if it is either too plain or too busy. Make sure everything is glued down porperly before you copy the zine, it's very frustrating when bits drop off!
You don't have to write on every page - if you have a blank page with nothing to say then fill it with a drawing.
Once you are happy with your zine fold the pages and use a long arm stapler to secure the pages.
To find out more about making collage zines and on-line zines visit: Artists in Business.