Zines : A Graphic Exposition : Part I

Hey hey peoples. Getting back to the whole Community project, and where it's going to be taking us over the next few weeks. For the next part of our Community project, we have to create a Zine. A zine? "What's a zine?", I hear you ask. Well it's quite simple to say what it is.
                

Examples of various punk zines (image from wikipedia.com)

A zine (taken from the word Magazine or Fanzine) is an self created, personal, almost comic like, small magazine that is hand made to the creator's own specifications. They are usually between 16-32 pages in length, and detail information/stories (mainly based on the creator's own personal opinions and expressions on a certain issue, and tries to get them across to readers, as opposed to a magazine which makes articles out of things people want to hear). Also, different to most magazines, they are usually not laid out with grid references and there is very little design made within a zine, it's more based on hand-drawn images, own handwriting, consuming colours and stuck on collages. A popular definition includes that circulation must be 5,000 or less, although in practice the significant majority are produced in editions of less than 1,000, and profit is not the primary intent of publication. So whilst being unique, they are also very rare. This is why they are heavily personalised as anyone can do anything within one. 


They largely started in the punk movement in the late 1970s. Before this, it was mainly pamphlets and leaflets that people published with. These 'Punk Zines' started in the UK and the U.S.A. and by March 1977 had spread to other countries. Cheap photocopying had made it easier than ever for anyone who could make a band flyer to make a zine. 

Maximum Rock & Roll

The example of a zine I used here is Maximum Rock N Roll, which is a long-running newsprint zine and is among the most influential punk zine of all time. I will be looking into this zine, and many others to see how they work, look and what stories they show us, and how they also keep the reader interested and wanting to look/read on.


            Simples! Well here's the next thing...we have to design our own zine that coincides with our Communities we have chosen for the previous project. I think, though no ideas have sprung to mind yet, it's all going to be about trial & error until i've found the best story for zine. Bit more research first me thinks though, so I will be posting some new examples of other zines that we have been shown, and see how they have been developed. Stay tuned...