Zines: An Introduction to Fighting the Power with a Piece of Paper

Zine Making

Today we're making quarter size zines. The layout may mess with your head. That's okay; breaking your brain while making a quarter size zine is a rite of passage!

Suggested Themes

• What I can do today to weaken racial and ethnic oppressions
• Racial and ethnic microaggressions
• Personal experiences with race, ethnicity, and power

Templates

With help from Milo Miller, famed QZAP co-founder, I've developed a zine template for myself for making a quarter-size zine that's eight pages long in InDesign. (This is not a template for a one-page folded zine. Those are easy to find.)

indd file

pdf file

docx file

Cover (p1)

Selfie or brain map
 

Inside cover (p2)

• Introduce your zine (pro-tip: you might want to do this at the end, so you know what you're introducing)
• Metadata: contextualize for the reader
  • Author
  • Date
  • Publication location
  • Contact information
• Freedoms and restrictions
  • Do you want to claim copyright?
  • Assign a CC license?
  • Reject copyright?
  • Control digital reproduction?
• The required or repetitive stuff, like the honor code: consider using a QR code

Page 3

Rant, manifesto, I statements poem

Page 4 (left side of centerfold)

Cartoon, sketch, art, doodles (be bold! draw stick figures!)

Page 5 (right side of centerfold)

Up to you!

Page 6

Pencil game: maze, crossword puzzle, word finder, quiz, survey, matching

Page 7

Recipe (could be literally about food, or it could be "steps to dismantling whiteness.")

Back Cover

Credits, playlist, reviews or recommendations

Another pro-tip: number your pages. This will help when you are assembling your zines.

Genre

personal * political * art * literary * split * compilation * minicomics * DIY

Pro Tips

• Leave a 1/4" margin around your pages
• Remember your zine will be copied or scanned, so light text and images may not reproduce well
• You do you