How To Make a Zine

OR HOW I MADE PISTACHIO

It's been almost three months since I debuted Pistachio, and I'm still over the moon with what an incredible experience it was! I have been asked several times to help out with other people's zines and how I made my own, and since I've begun the beginning processes of creating the second issue, I thought now would be the perfect time to share with you How I Made Pistachio:

NO 1: FIND INSPIRATION Regardless of whether it is a child's painting or the Mona Lisa, you need to be inspired by something and have a clear picture of what kind of theme, tone, and overall color scheme you want for the zine. I went through images and clippings I had saved to help shape the tone and theme I wanted.

NO 2: PUT PEN TO PAPER Write the articles you want to write, draw the drawings you want to include, and take the pictures you want to take for the zine. Also, if you have started getting ideas for how you want the zine to look, sketch out layout ideas - this helped me figure out how I wanted arrange a series of pictures and text on a page.

NO 3: ASK FOR SUBMISSIONS Now this isn't mandatory, but I cannot recommend it highly enough! I felt so honored when people I really admired consented to being a part of the zine, and when I posted a call for submissions here I received some really incredible submissions by people I didn't even know read my blog! Of course, there was some entries I had to turn down - they were great, but just didn't fit the aesthetic of my zine. Turning them down was hard, but this is *your* vision and you should not be obligated to include anything you don't want to. Just be kind when you tell them you can't use their piece!

NO 4: PUT IT ALL TOGETHER Compile all of the illustrations, submissions, and articles and begin designing your zine! This was the most difficult part - there were so many possibilities! Using Photoshop CS4 and a design inspiration Pinterest board to help me, I designed and put together all the different elements into a page. One thing I noticed was I could spend hours and hours arranging all the pieces in the slightest different ways - and it got to the point where I was just wasting time. Unless you want a super sleek, professional quality zine, do not sweat the small stuff - for my specific case, what I was making was just supposed to be a fun, personal side project!

NO 5: FORMAT FOR PRINTING AND ISSUU Another part I struggled with was the actual process of printing and figuring out how to upload it to Issuu, a site I really love because it allows you to flip through the zine as if it was a real magazine! I made two different versions of the zine, one formatted like the standard half-size zine (a great diagram for this can be found here) and the other as a pdf file to upload to Issuu. For more about uploading documents to Issuu, visit here.

NO 6: UNVEIL YOUR ZINE, PRINT OUT A COPY,
AND CRY OVER HOW PERFECT IT IS

Pretty self-explanatory! By the time I completely Pistachio, it was completely different from what I imagined and nowhere near perfect - but that didn't matter! I had created something I felt truly proud of and couldn't wait to share it with you all. As I said to my friend who expressed doubt over her artistic skills and thus felt like she couldn't make one herself, one of the best aspects of zines is that you are in control and can do anything you want with the zine - it doesn't matter if you aren't the world's greatest writer or artist, just write or illustrate what you feel and that will be good enough.

Feel free to email or comment asking questions, and I will try to answer them to the best of my ability! Also please let me know about any zines you have created or are planning to make! I wanna hear about them ^^

Floral background is courtesy of Pugly Pixel

♡,
Kailey

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