Printing a Zine in Wedding
In 2023 I'm planning on producing four zines and two artist books.
I realise now that I've not blogged about this. I publically declared it in a newsletter but not here*. So now I'm saying it out loud. "4 zines. 2 artist books."
My schedule for the year is:
March - Zine
June - Zine
July - **Book**
September - Zine
October - **Book**
December - Zine
But lucky me, it's February and I've already checked off the zine box.
A couple weeks ago I went to Colorama Books in Wedding, a neighborhood in Berlin, for two different workshops where I learned about riso printing. In one I made a poster, in the other a zine.
Colorama is a great space, and puts a lot of energy into getting printing into the hands of as many people as possible. They run low-cost and subsidised printing workshops. They offer a couple scholarship programs to help non-profits or socially-motivated groups print zines and posters. They also teach classes in risoprinting. That's where I showed up.
Over four hours one Sunday I and three others earned about risograph machines, file preparation, zine folding and paper cutting. It was a blast and a much, much needed break from digital work (though I did the file prep on my laptop).
I'm happy with my first zine as a test/experiment. While it can feel like a paper waste, if you're making something printed, you really do have to print out "dummy" copies to see how they fit in your hand, and how the artwork sits on the page. As good as something looks on a screen, it never feels the same printed. I'm sure with enough experience you can get to a point where the gap between what you layout digitally versus what you get printed is quite small. I'm not at that point.
My direct takeaways are that - the size it folds down to is a bit too small, and the images sitting on each page are all a bit too big. I love the DIY aspect and the simplicity of a folded zine - no binding at all - but for me it ends up feeling a bit too clumsy. The folds aren't perfect, the folded pages are too thick, and the edges don't quite line up right. My zine, to me, feels cool, but not finished. It feels like a test zine, which is exactly what it was. This zine won’t be for sale, but future ones probably will be. Watch this space!
I will be back. More riso is in my future. Now on to the next zine, with thoughts about the first book.
The ten list I wrote the day after the workshop:
Everything always is slightly the wrong size when it's printed
Don't try to control the color
I understand design, but "design" for paper is different than "design" for screen
Hierarchy is complicated
Making things with my hands is worth the effort
Bring snacks
I should keep finding reasons to work in Riso
Folded-paper zines are cool, but too DIY for my taste
Even though I like the mistakes and suprises, I need a level of polish to be happy with my results
It's fun being inexperienced at something
*As an aside I realise that I don't really have any clear divison between what's a blog post and what's a newsletter. I probably need an SEO & Brand Consultant to tell me how to manage all my channels (two channels, shouldn't be that hard) but I don't have one. It's just me and today I'm writing a blog post.