Aisling | Aisling

Free Zine #1

Years ago, I put together a single-sheet zine as a sample for my students in my Artfest ‘Make the World Your Art Gallery’ workshop.

Mostly, I was demonstrating different techniques for zines, especially using torn-paper elements in them.

It’s not an absolutely fabulous zine, and it’s not even much about art.

I simply used topics trending at the time I taught the workshop, and tried to make each page kinda-sorta referenced that topic.

So, this zine is just a series of random pages. You could probably put them together in any order, and this zine would make equal sense.

Or, to be honest, not much sense at all. But that’s part of the FUN of zines… They don’t need to be The Meaning of Life. Or have much “sensible” meaning, at all!

How to assemble this zine

Print the PDF, two-sided, on 8.5″ x 11″ (US letter sized) paper. If your printer asks, tell it to print two-sized and flip horizontally along the longer side.

Then cut the printed sheet in half (horizontally, across the middle)

Place one half-sheet on top of the other. Then fold – and maybe glue or staple – the zine in the middle.

(You can see sketches of how this works at my Single-sheet Zine Designs page.)

As I’d created it, the front cover was the one with “Tour” in big letters. The page that talks about travel should probably be on the back of it. (That is, the “Tour” page is at the front, and then the “Travel” page is on the other side of it.)

But, as I said, it doesn’t really matter how you assemble this. It wasn’t intended to make sense.

You may need to adjust the size or shift the paper so that the pages line up correctly, when printed back to back. But, when it’s assembled, it’s an 8-page zine (four, two-sized pages) from one sheet of 8 1/2″ x 11″ paper.

Here’s the link. You can right-click to save it to your hard drive, or you can simply click and open it as a PDF, and print it immediately.

Click here for the PDF of the zine

If you’d like to make your own zines, browse my other zine articles.

Zine Layouts

Here’s what you need to know about zine layouts…

Zine sizes

From what I’ve seen, the majority of people who create homegrown zines use letter-sized printed pages (8 1/2″ x 11″) and fold them in half. Each sheet of paper is four pages of the zine.

An “average” zine is five to 15 sheets of paper, meaning 20 to 60 pages. (But really, there are no “average” zines. Each is unique, as it should be! )

In swaps, most zines are at the small end of that figure… five or so sheets of paper, and often less.

In fact, plenty of them are just a sheet or two of paper. They’re printed or photocopied (and sometimes cut). Then they’re folded, and usually stapled to make a zine. That makes them four pages… depending upon how they’re cut and folded, of course.

The single-sheet zine layout

The classic zine design is funky.

If you’re a purist, you’ll love this.
If you’re on a budget, you’ll also love this: It’s a 16-page zine created with just one sheet of legal-sized paper. (Yes, just one. Really!)

Note: I don’t count the cover as a “page” when I number my zine pages, so my own version of this is 12 pages, plus an outside cover & inside covers. Here’s how it fits on the legal-sized (8.5″ x 14″) sheet of paper:

Cut on the solid lines and fold on the dotted lines.

Staple in the center. One staple is usually enough.

How to swap, mail, and share zines

If you’re mailing one of those single-sheet zines, one stamp on the envelope is usually enough to mail one of them.

Where to send your zines – You can tuck them in with your bill payments, with your notes to friends, with your other swaps, and so on!

Swaps by mail – Tell your friends what you’re doing. Ask if they’d like to play, too. Or organize a swap on social media, on your website, in a forum, etc. Learn more about zine swaps here.

Digital swaps (and shares) – You can also scan your zine, uncut, and put it online so others can print their own copy, cut & assemble it. Easy!

But keep in mind, if it’s a zine like the single-sheet (8.5″ x 11″) zine shown above… Well, it won’t hold much info unless you write VERY small, or you find clever ways to expand the available space, such as adding fold-out pages & stuff.

That said, the 16-pages-from-one-sheet-of-legal-paper is regarded as a classic zine, if we’re talking about all kinds of zines, including poetry, fanzines, and so on.

Taking zines to the next level… or not!

There are other ways to make zines. Look at books about making handmade books, for the best inspiration.

Here’s a favorite:

Handmade Books - Alisa Golden — Click on cover to see it at Amazon.com

The general concept is the same as zines, but zines are usually smaller & more informal than handmade books, that’s all.

If you want to create a zine that’s a work of art, that’s fine. If you want to get wild & crazy with design, that’s fine too.

However, keep in mind that a zine can be one piece of paper, b&w, printed on both sides, and folded in half. And that’s a four-page zine.

Many of these single-page zines are still in my collection.

Whatever the zine, make it yours!

Put your art & soul into your zine, and don’t worry about the size or technical stuff.

I love almost every zine I see. Size, expertise, and visual quality often have nothing to do with how enthusiastic I am about a zine!

What I’m saying is: If you’ve wanted to create a zine for fun, or just to see what it’s like to make one, just do it!

The bonus is, if you swap your zines with others, you’ll receive fabulous zines in return, which you might never see if you hadn’t swapped.

My zine history

I published my first zine in 1977. It was one piece of paper, printed on one or two sides, folded, stamped, and sent out with someone’s name & address written on the outside.

In time, I graduated to two or three sheets of paper, and I started rubber stamping & glittering my zines. Yes, each one was hand-decorated.

Since then, I’ve explored nearly every possible variation on the zine theme: Color and b&w; on 8 1/2″ x 17″ paper, and on a single 8 1/2″ x 11″ sheet, folded in half; and so on.

Late in 2024, as I’m updating this post, I still love zines, and plan to make more of them in the coming months. Yaaayyy for zines!

A very basic, single-sheet zine layout or the expanded version of that page
A free, simple single-sheet zine (PDF)
A free printable zine from 2010: The 24-Hour Zine Thing Zine
How Zine Swaps Work – one of the best ways to share your zines, and – in return – receive zines from others!

If you have questions or answers, post a comment below.

Zine Basics

For years, I was the list moderator for the botmzines group/list at Yahoo!Groups, I decided to throw together some pages about zines.

For starters, the “botmzines” name came from the group that inspired it, the Book Of The Month list… BOTM. So, although botmzines swaps aren’t on any specific calendar, the group started with that name and so it remains.

With that bit of trivia out of the way, let’s discuss zines!

Schedules

First of all, if you want something that is published on time, and is proofread, has high-quality graphics and writing, and generally sticks to the theme it had when you subscribed to it… subscribe to a magazine. You know, like Time, or Newsweek.

Zines are published on whim. Oh, sure, some people manage to write right-brained zines on a left-brained schedule. My hat is off to them. I have no idea how they manage it.

For fun, not profit

Zines are labors of love. We don’t make money on them, or if we manage to show a profit on one issue, we go crazy writing & re-writing the next issue, including color pages or something, and–bingo–we’re back in the red again. In other words, zines are not a way to make a living. Or even pick up some extra spending money. For most of us, zines cost money to produce but we love ’em anyway.

Zines are fun in a way that can’t be put into words. If you’re driven to create them, you’ll get a sense of satisfaction (and some angst) when you complete one and it’s in the mail to others.

Receiving a zine can be… well, I hate to say ‘better than chocolate’ because that’s such a cliche, and very personal.

That said, when a zine is cool, there aren’t enough superlatives for it. When a zine is weird, it’s truly out there… and usually fascinating, as well.

It’s often a love/hate thing.

There are almost NO generalities that can be made about zines, so let me tell you about my own eccentricities:

They make me crazy, but I love them anyway. And I love having zines to swap so I can get others’ zines.

My zines are published at odd times, vaguely quarterly. They bear a variety of names, also whim-based. They may be half-pages (printed on 8 1/2″ x 11″ paper, folded in half), or bigger, or even smaller. Some have cardstock covers, but most are all on the same kind of paper (and color) that came out of the photocopy machine.

Most of my zines are b&w. Most of them are loosely related to art, especially paper arts. Most are a mix of printed text, scribbled-in notes, and my own graphics.

Generally, after six months or so, I lose track of when people’s subscriptions started, so I close down new orders for awhile, and send out more than the subscription’s worth of copies (meaning that early subscribers can end up with two or more times the number of issues that they ordered). And then I start up again.

(Yes, that’s embarrassing. It’s also not unusual among people who create art zines.)

Generally, I make zines when I receive someone else’s zine and my batteries get recharged.

Why people create zines

From the classic guide to zine-making, Zine Scene: The Do It Yourself Guide to Zines, by Francesca Lia Block & Hillary Carlip:

“Tell your story… your obsessions, your fears, your dreams, in words and pics, because it is powerful, because it kicks, to express and connect, even if it’s not always pretty, cool, or slick.”

Also from Hillary Carlip, “Sometimes paper is the only thing that will listen to you.”

Worried about how it will look? Here’s another quote from Zine Scene:

“Who knows what Baroque pearls and sizzling diamonds of content lie buried in the impossibly small print, or floppity-sloppity-scrawly handwriting of a rough-to-read zine?”

In other words, say whatever you want to, and don’t worry about how it looks.

Or… go crazy with how it looks and forget about saying anything overtly pithy.

Either one works–or both!

My favorite resources & inspirations, offline

Others’ zines. Plain & simple. Get your hands on as many as you can. The easiest way is to swap! You can swap through the botmzines list at Yahoo!Groups, linked above.
The Garage, Issue No. 2, published by Diane Moline. As far as I know, Diane makes her zines in very small numbers, and only for swaps. I’m thrilled to own two copies of The Garage.
Dog Eared Magazine, Issue Five, about Zines. For more info, see dogearedmagazine.com
Zine Scene: The Do It Yourself Guide to Zines, a book by Francesca Lia Block and Hillary Carlip. It’s considered a classic. When I checked in mid-2006, it had been out of print for awhile. If you see a copy, old or new, snag it if you’re serious about zines.

ATC Tutorial 4 – Memories – Finishing the ATC

Continued from ATC Tutorial 3 – Memories – Giving it meaning

The card was very nearly finished. I liked the colors and the general design of the image, but it needed just a little… something else. I didn’t know what, yet.

This is the part of the process that can take forever, since it’s trial and error. There’s a feeling that you’re almost there, and it’s only working with a set time limit that prevents the card from becoming a two-week continuing project.

I remembered an ATC that I made earlier, with a photo of a little girl and her teddy bear.

Suddenly, the new card was about a frail and elderly woman, remembering her days as a “flapper”. She was remembering her childhood near San Francisco when she and her father would go to the pond by the Palace of Fine Arts, to feed the birds.

I still had the layers from my earlier card, so it was easy to copy the layer with the little girl and position her on this new ATC.

I liked the effect immediately.

Before flattening the layers, I selected that band of natural color where the water meets the land, and I increased the saturation.

Then, I chose the inverse selection and lightened it, reducing contrast as well.

Finally, I flattened the layers and reduced the image size to fit on a 3″ x 5″ ATC.

I added the border and text, using the P22-Monet font. I deliberately overlapped the text and the image a little, because I wanted it to look like the lady had written this on the card herself.

Here is the completed card:

right-click on the card to save it to your hard drive

You can print this card at 150 dpi to create you own copy of this 3″ x 5″ ATC. (It’s okay to adjust the size to fit the more popular 2.5″ x 3.5″ format.)

ATC Tutorial 3 – Memories – Giving it meaning

Continued from ATC Tutorial 2 – Memories – Adding More Layers

At this point, the card was pretty… but it had no real theme or meaning to it. And, while “pretty” art can stand on its own merits, I rarely choose to make art without another layer of meaning. So, I started examining the card for clues.

I increased the contrast and lightened the background layer. I knew that something needed to go in front of it, and by reducing the “obviousness” of the background, it helped me to focus.

I was still drawing a blank.

So, I went to my copy of Photoshop Secrets of the Pros: 20 Top Artists and Designers Face Off for ideas. (If it’s selling for under $10 at Amazon and you enjoy this kind of art, get a copy. Otherwise, see if your public library owns it. If they don’t, tell them to buy a copy.)

I was inspired by the work of John Henry Donovan, of 5pieces.com.

another step in the ATC process - inverting color

I tried inverting color (Image–>Adjust) in strips with five-pixel feathering. However, once the stripes were dark, I needed to duplicate the layer with the Paris-Draped figure, to make it more opaque.

I wasn’t too sure that I liked the effect. In fact, it was pretty much ick. And, having set a three-hour deadline–trying to mimic my one-hour ATCs but allow for this documentation–I needed to finish the card quickly.

I deleted the extra layer of Paris-Draped so that the figures were transparent again. And, I desaturated the layer. But, as I was using the Hue/Saturation screen for this, I accidentally altered the background hues… and liked the effect.

I started selecting rectangular areas of the background, and changing the hue of each of them and then switched them back again.

Finally, I worked with the area nearest the middle and altered it back to its original, natural colors.

Then, I chose Select–>Inverse and tweaked the remaining background image and adjusted it until I was happy with it.

Finally, the Paris-Draped layer had to be adjusted as well, both contrast and hue.

Now, I was getting a theme. The Paris-Draped figure was clearly from the past, and the single band of natural/real coloring in the image was like a faded memory… only part of it was accurate and the rest was a little surreal.

Conclusion: ATC Tutorial 4 – Memories – Finishing the ATC

Memories – A Digital ATC

This card was designed to document the creative process when I’m working on digital ATCs.

I’ve written four pages–with thumbnail images of each step–to explain how I work on these cards. It shows you how to go from initial idea to finished card.

This card, with documentation and HTML work, took about three and a half hours. I think that I spent an hour on the card itself. That’s what I’m trying to maintain as a challenge.

To read how the card was made, and why I made the choices that I did, see How to Make a Digital ATC.

Everlasting – free digital ATC

Everlasting by Aisling D'Art (c) May 2005

After a wonderful weekend in New Orleans, I was in the mood for a slightly eerie, somewhat nostalgic ATC.

The ATC image started with my photo from a Massachusetts park, taken early one April morning.

Next, I added a public domain photo of a little girl. I have no idea who she is, but she appealed to me for this particular card.

In front of her is some scanned text from Charles Dickens’ novel, Great Expectations.

In back of her, just to her left, I added a Celtic cross photographed in Ireland, courtesy of pdphoto.org. I tried the cross in several places, and when it was slightly lower than the top of her head, it looked less ominous.

(While some see this as a Halloween ATC, the cross is – as far as I know – not a grave marker. However, I’ll admit that the card damy have an eerie vibe.)

Finally, I added the word “everlasting” in Baskerville Old Face (font).

I tweaked the layers, did a lot with color and lighting effects, and finally resized the image so that it will print as a 3″ x 5″ ATC. (You can adjust the size on your own computer, if you’d prefer a smaller size.)

If you’d like to print this card at home, right-click on this link and save it to your hard drive. Then, print it at 150 pixels/inch.

The card is copyrighted, of course, but you can print it for your own use. After all, that’s what swaps – even digital ones – are for!

Dreamcards – from an ATC swap

Art can be very revealing, whether that’s our intention or not.

These are two ATCs that I created, and what I wrote about them in 2000:

Dream Card/Nightmare Card, 5 Sept 2000

These are two cards from an ATC exchange, with a theme of “Dreams and Nightmares.” The originals are 3″ x 5″.

My dream card features images of my children, DisneyWorld and my paints. There’s also a view of the houses directly across the street from the Royal Shakespeare Company’s main theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England.

What I hope to show with this collage, is what is most important to me: Color, in all its definitions. My family, experiencing life and having fun as we travel and discover new things; the colors of our emotions, the scenery, and our memories of happy events.

My nightmare card features stark, perhaps menacing images without color or hope.

The images include (top to bottom)

the same paints as on my Color card,
the poorhouse in Kilmallock (Co. Limerick) where my gr-great grandmother died, and
the view (looking up towards the sky) at a castle in Co. Galway

Over those images, I’ve added photos of:

a truly spooky angel at the Irish cemetery in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and also
a self-portrait of my husband.* (Really. He took this photo of himself and gave it to me. He said that he thought it was a good photo.)

These are not dark or hopeless images in themselves, but I added drama by increasing contrast, so they take on new aspects.

What surprised me the most is that the Color (dream) card is as many of my recent collages have been: A bit disjointed, compartmentalized, and a little empty.

By contrast, the No Color (nightmare) card flows, the images blend nicely, and I actually prefer this as art, compared with the Color (dream) card. Technically, the No Color one is a vastly better work of art.

I think this is rather revealing, and indicates some self-work ahead of me.

(No, I do not actually think there’s “no hope” in this–or any–area of my life. Remember, this art is created from my imagination, using images that I have at hand. Yes, it means something, but please don’t take it all literally, or too seriously!)

But, this is what art is about: self-discovery.

Even when I’m dismayed by what I see, it opens the door for me to make changes and improve myself and my life.

So now I’m wondering: Why are my nightmares so much more vivid and easy to access, than my dreams? Why do they flow when the dreams do not seem to reach my consciousness without effort? Why are my images so compartmentalized?

These are, in a way, rhetorical questions. My diary will probably show what I discover.

I can tell you that, when I saw what I’d said with this art, I started taking very positive steps to make immediate changes. I didn’t get into this situation overnight, and it probably won’t be an overnight change to get things back on track. But I’m working on it, and I see progress, and that’s the important part.

[Reminder: I wrote that in 2000. Since then, there’s been a divorce. Both of us have remarried. I’m living a very happy life again, and returning to the creativity that I enjoyed in the 1980s and earlier.]

* When I said “my husband” in this article about my two ATCs, it was before my 2003 divorce. I’ve kept the photo in this art because, unless you know him very well, you probably won’t recognize him.

Resizing Your Art for Artistamps

Q: I want to make some artistamps by hand, not necessarily on the computer. How do I make my art the right size for stamps? Should I be creating the art in stamp size, to start with?

A: Most commercial artists work much larger than the finished, printed product will be. For example, a standard paperback book cover was often a poster-size painting.

When the image is reduced to the correct size, there will be impressive detail in it without a lot of microscopic work in the first place.

When you’re creating stamps, or any reduced-size art, there are several ways to work:

Work to size

Obviously, you can create the work in the size it should be when completed. This is fine for carved stamps, one-of-a-kind work, and so on. However, if you’re working off the computer, or want a lot of detail, this is the difficult way to do things.

Work larger, then reduce at the photocopy machine

Create the images you want, in a larger size. Try to work in a size that can at least fit on the glass of the copy machine.

If your art fills a standard letter-size sheet of paper, and your finished stamp will be less than one inch square, you’re probably including more detail than you need to.

Next, use the photocopier’s reducing option, until the image is the size that you want. That is, if you’re working h-u-g-e, reduce the image to the smallest size the machine permits, then reduce that copy to the size you need.

If you’re using a color copier, this can get expensive as you use trial-and-error to achieve the correct size. Experiment with a regular (cheaper) photocopier first. Make note of the percentages you used to reduce to the ideal size.

Once you’ve figured out what percentage of reduction looks best, switch to the color copier, enter the correct reduction percentage, and print your final work.

Work larger, and reduce with your computer graphics program

If you’re using your own color printer, this is one of the best choices.

Basically, scan your work with your computer scanner, then use your graphics program to reduce the image to the finished size. Repeat the image for a full sheet.

(Some programs call this “tiling,” others–including Adobe–use words such as “pattern.” You can learn how to do this at my article, How to make a sheet of stamps, with Adobe Photoshop.)

Finally, print it on your printer.

If you don’t have your own color printer, many larger copy shops (for example, some FedEx/Kinko’s shops) have computers and color printers for customers to use, for a small fee. Bring them a disk of your completed work, and print it on their printer.

Work larger in b&w, adding color to the correct-size image

You can avoid the color issue altogether by designing black and white artistamps. However, if you want colored artistamps and the previous methods won’t work for you, there are alternatives.

Create the black-and-white line work in a larger format.

Then, reduce it with a b&w photocopier, and tile with repeated copies, as necessary.

Hand-color the image/s.

Finally, either use those as stamps, or visit a copy shop with a color copier, and make multiple photocopies for use as stamps.

No doubt there are other ways to accomplish your goal, but these are among the most popular.

There is no point in using a magnifying glass and a three-haired paintbrush to create eensy-weensy images for the stamps. Work big and bold, and then reduce the images for the best results.

When I work larger for any purpose, I always work at least 33% bigger than the final image, for the best impression of detail in the finished product.

How to make a Sheet of Artistamps with Adobe PhotoShop

If you’re new to Adobe’s PhotoShop program, it can be overwhelming to figure out all the fabulous bells & whistles it offers. However, it’s a wonderful tool for artistamps!

When I wrote this article around 2002, I was using Adobe 5.0. The commands may vary slightly if you’re using a different version, but the concepts remain the same.

If you have an image that you’ve created with (or scanned into) Adobe, here are the steps to repeat it easily, so the image fills a page of artistamps when you print it:

1. Select the image you want to use. This means it should be surrounded by dotted lines indicating that the Adobe program has “selected” it. If you don’t know how to do this, go into Adobe’s Help menu and look up “selecting an area.”

2. Go into the Edit menu, select Define and then Define Pattern. (Some programs go directly to Define Pattern.) Your image is now saved in Adobe’s short-term memory.

3. Delete your original image, by clicking on the X on the image window, or you can just delete the layer with the image by using Layer–>Delete Layer.

4. Either enlarge that emply window/layer (if you merely deleted the layer) so the Image Size is slightly smaller than the paper you’ll be printing on –OR– (if you clicked on the X and removed the entire image) create a new image (File–>New) in that size.

I like to work with an image that’s about 7″ x 10″ for paper that’s 8.5″ x 11″.

5. Select the entire image/layer. You can do this by hitting Control-A, or by right clicking and choosing Select All.

6. Right click inside the new image/layer, select Fill and then choose Pattern. Your image, repeated to fill the new size, will appear. If you are happy with what you see, you’re ready to print.

7. If your new, repeated image isn’t tidy–and it usually isn’t–you’ll want to remove (crop) the partial images. Use your Select Area tool to surround all of the complete images. Then choose Image and Crop so the loose pieces vanish. Now you’re ready to print.

8. If you’re using nice (price-y) paper for your finished product, it’s a good idea to print a “proof” copy on plain (cheap) paper, to make certain the finished plate of stamps looks pleasing.

If positioning is key, you may want to print on tracing vellum first, lay it over the paper you’ll be using for the finished product, and see if it lines up okay.

9. After you’ve printed your stamps and are ready to close your Adobe program, save just ONE copy of the stamp image, using the Crop feature. You can save the entire repeated image if you like, but that can take up a lot of disk space if your hard drive is nearly full.

Cheatsheet version:

1. Select image area
2. Edit–>Define–>Pattern
3. Delete original image
4. Create new image in size to fit on printer paper
5. Right click to Select All
6. Right click inside area, choose Fill–>Pattern

Author: Aisling