How to make a zine

These images are taken off the website www.rookiemag.com. 

I found this technique to be my favourite when it comes to making a zine. I like the idea of the zine not needing to be binded and that I could put a poster on the back, which would add a more interactive feel to it. It works as a gift from the zine, a two in one or a gimmick. 

I took a try at making this type of zine and also attempted to adapt it as well. 

First one I did was out of A1 Blue paper. Obviously blue won't be the colour I choose for my final product, I just wanted a range of colours to show you the different styles and the difference between each zine layout. I really like the A1 size paper as it created quite a big zine, which is originally what I had researched to do - think back to BEAT magazine etc. However I feel that I will have troubles photocopying this and it would then mean I needed to send it to someone else, which would take away the element of something being homemade. 

Pictures of the A1 Sized zine:

(SORRY IT'S BLURRY!)

The next one I made was out of an A4 Piece of paper. This created very small zines which I loved because I like the delicacy of them, however I feel as a photography based zine, this size wouldn't make the images look appealing or work well with them, as my work needs to be portrayed quite bold. 

As you can see I used the same technique as above yet with a smaller piece of paper. 

Adapting the above A4 paper idea, I wanted to find a way to add more pages into my zine, without having to use glue, sellotape or staples etc. Because obviously it would then ruin the poster feature of my zine. So with this in mind I cut an A4 piece of paper in half, make an extra mini size that was small enough to slot into the already pre made A4 one. With this, I made additional slits into the paper and slotted the mini book pages into each slit. By doing this I found that the little book stayed in place without have to be glued down, which is a huge brake through. This meant that the person reading this could slot the book out and still use the original zine book as a poster, after reading it. 

Here is an example of the book with a print on the back - please excuse the dodgy print as it's an old tester for a previous project. Take note that this is an A3 piece of paper being used. I really like the size of this size and also It's still easy to do, as I am able to get access to printers that photo copy at that paper size. 

Ideas behind the name 'I'm the son of rage and love'

It's been racking my brain trying to find a word or a phrase that would be perfect for my zine. I've thought of something simple like MAN or MALE. Something that is straight to the point and makes the audience automatically know what they're about to see in the zine. However I thought this was too obvious, maybe even slightly boring. So I then googled for definitions of the words men, male, man to see if that would make an insteresting or quirky cover- it didn't. Nor did it thesaurus and give me a range of other words I could use. It was ridiculous. 

So I then looked into lyrics and musicians I liked, such as the smiths, kooks, arctic monkeys which gave me ideas such as 'This Charming Man'. This I did like, however I felt that it would be something that has either been done before or over done. Also I felt that it didn't create the vibe for my magazine, or that it made the audience feel misjudged. Simply because when I look at the statement, I imagine a posh, suited and booted male and well, my men are all quirky, rugged and punk - bingo. With this thought in mind, I then looked into relevent musicians that matched the criteria of my men. People with a bit of edge, old school, punk etc. With this I came to Greenday and one of their songs Jesus of Suburbia.  Possible phrases in this song I considered were: 

-Clipped Wings

-In a land of make believe, that don't believe in me

-To alcohol and cigarettes and Mary Jane

-We are the stories and disciples of the Jesus of suburbia

- I am the son of rage and love. 

I liked them all as they were all cryptic and original. They also weren't obvious at all, which is an element I really like. They're poetic in a way, which is quite endearing. I'm still torn with which one to pick, but so far I'm swayed to ' I am the son of rage and love' because it's slightly more obvious what the zine will be about. 

I'm going to ask my seminar group and see what they think - call it consumer research if you will. 

Possible Front covers

FONTS

Below are some fonts I recently made on photoshop. I wanted to create my own title, rather than using a pre made one and run the risk of having something similar to someone else. They were quite simple to do as I used pre made fonts then within photoshop created boxes to cut out elements of the text or used the transform tool to twist and squeeze it, to give a range of interesting (or not in the bottom texts case) looks. 

I really like the typography below as it's classy and I can see it being something that would be used by others. It's bold, its stylish, yet to the point. It's not too hard to read which is good as you want your zine to be recognisable and also to be spoke about - If you cant even read the title, how are other people going to? also bit embarrassing isn't it, no one would want to read it. Anyway, the reason that i've used the example of boys is simply because, well that's what my zine is about and i was looking at possible zine name ideas. 

The below is probably the main name or typo I will be using for my zine. I've took the quote from a Greenday song - which I will go into later. With the below fonts, I used the same one which I plan to use  through out my zine, however I changed the boldness and colours, just to give what will be a plain page, a bit of a 'pop'. I think this logo/ name is quite eye catching and interesting. It's also mysterious, as you would have to open the zine to know what it is about, it makes the zine very ambiguous.

I really dislike this font i've made - I dont even feel like I need to speak about how bad it is.

POSSIBLE LAYOUTS FOR MY ZINE

Using photoshop I was able to use a current magazine double page spread layout to make my own ZINE layouts. Basically the curved images below were already pre made, I just used the square tool to turn the pages into a blank white canvas to work on. Then depending on the pages and images, I also used the transform tools to manipulate images into looking like there were on a slightly bent turned over page. 

The image directly below was originally an idea for the name or the inside page of the magazine, possibly the middle one? The idea behind it was a play on a typical photography theme of the 'female gaze' but changing to the male gaze causes controversy in a very opinionated topic. It also draws attention to the fact that men can feel violated or used in images too - the zine is representing males in a good way. Men power so to speak. 

I used a simple, type write theme - for no particular reason other than it's currently one of my favourites. I like the simplicity of it on plain page. Despite its simplicity, it's extremely eye catching and I really like that about it -It's not too try hard.  With this I was extremely conscious of the layout, making it readable, eye catching yet interesting at the same time. I used the dictionary layout because it adds extra meaning to the titles, which also creates a more visually appealing page. 

This layout is a design i've been researching into for quite a while. The border idea, I am really fond of however the image I've used below I don't think will make the final selection, so I need to practice this on other images. Despite this, the overall layout is quite interesting. I like how the image on the opposite page is smaller and less of a focal point, it also guides your eyes in a different direction, keeping the reader more interested in the zine ( or so I hope ). Negatives to this would be I would have to make sure the two images either completely contrast or that they are similar.. I feel that the two images below, despite being of the same person, they don't quite work. They connote two different stories and emotions, so this could be quite confusing to readers or make the page create quite messy emotions. 

A page before the image pages: 

HATE the font. This was simply an experiment of layout, rather than typography. I do like this, I like the surrounded white space, it's clean and calming - could juxtapose with the next page of busy borders and illustrations. However this may be of the cards for me, due to the fact that I don't feel that there will be enough pages in my zine to do this, after my recent zine research - coming soon.  

I really like the use of snippets of colour and the border on this layout page. I feel like the left hand page needs more around it though - maybe illustrations or words? Small words, poetic around the image.. Maybe lyrics or quotes from the male? This is definitely something to think of, as I need to make my zine more interesting as it's not just a typical picture book. I also like the clash between the colour of the border and the image, it creates a more open colour theme and clashing colours is on trend at the moment - making it work with this fashion element. 

This page I did differently to the others - it was one of my first ones, hence the dodgy edit. I personally dislike the colour and the black and white used together. I think this idea would work better with splashes of colour, which I'm going to experiment with later on. I do however really like the mini border around the smaller image. It gives it more importance, which is good because when working with pairs of images, they need to work together and be just as important than the other. 

An idea of what a double page image would look like and I really like it. I'm tempted to just include one of these in the zine - probably this image too. It breaks the zine up from busyness and also pulls more attention on the images. 

Again excuse the dodgy stretched edit - this was also one of my first examples. I wanted to experiment with how the images would look like with the males name on the page. I've used the same font as the front cover, so there is a clear theme and connection running through the magazine. I've also kept it simple like the front cover. One thing that I do like about adding words to the page, or the males name is that it creates a more personal element to the page and image. It makes the male appear less of a stranger. 

I love this design, it's eye catching, bold , colourful and trendy. It works well if the front cover of the zine and it also does what the above images do and creates a more personal level to the page. The writing itself is a quote from the male which adds a humours element to the page and is there to get a reaction from the reader. I feel to make this page slightly more interesting and personal, i'm going to add the males illustrations to the page and scatter them around. This will be a typical zine feature, which I think would work in my own zine. 

Edit

So far I haven't created too many edits of this shoots. This is because I actually really like the below image and feel that this is the only edit from this shoot that I will need to include in my zine. I've over layed two of my own images, one of which is graffiti, the other is the image of the model, which I edited into black and white on photoshop. In fact, I created this whole image on photoshop by placing one image on top of one another and changing the opacity to around 55 percent. The only negative I have towards this image would be that I wish the writing part of the image was my own words or a quote from the male, adding to the personal element I am seeking. 

Jakes shoot