Making a Zine (a booklet) Using Publisher
Making a "comp-zine" (a compilation zine, which gathers together several individual contributions of related writing) first and foremost entails planning:
Much of what you have to learn about layout you can learn from:
Today....we just want to focus on how getting familiar with some of the tools in Publisher.
- choose catalog (b/c the margins are set up to produce a 81/2 by 11 fold-over booklet)
- click on designs and look for one you want to use
- you'll want to have your "Task Pane" open (which you can find under View)
- click on the downward arrow and it will show you other "task panes" (one you want is Page Content)
- click on any object and you can move it or delete it
- insert a jpeg and you can wrap text around it or fade it out and "send it to the back" (as a watermark)
2. Inserting Text (already written; don't compose in Publisher!)
- Assuming you already have text....you copy and paste into a text book and then click on the "Create Text Box Link" (your cursor will turn into a spilling pitcher...that means you have text to dump in the next text box)
3. Inserting images (already composed in Photoshop; you can, however, resize in Publisher)
- If you're inserting a photograph (rather than a photoshopped "graphic"), you should be sure when you go to Xerox the zine that you set the Copier Machine to "Halftone" (and set the resolution to medium). Otherwise, you'll get lots of toner on the black/white image.
General Design Ideas
1. Look at samples. You're get your best ideas by looking at how other people have done something. If you find a layout on a page you like, make a quick sketch or follow me back to my office after class and make a Xerox copy.
2. It's important to balance the page, and to balance pages that face each other in the zine.
3. Don't use a "watermark" image (one with opacity set very low) if the image is so detailed that either you can't make out what it is OR it interferes with the reading of the text.
4. Sometimes, it works well to have black print on white background (the default) alternate (face a page with) white print on a black background.
5. "Bleeds" (where graphics run all the way to the edge of the paper) are interesting but sometimes difficult to make happen. "Inside bleeds" (where a graphic runs across the inside margins) are interesting (done once).
General Design Ideas
If you really like your group's zine and want to distribute it (and hear back from readers from around the country and even the world), you can send a sample of your zine to a "distro" (a distributor) and ask them if they'll carry it.
AK Distribution/ p.o.box 40682 San Francisco, CA 94140
Atomic Books/ 229 W. Read St./ Baltimore, MD 21201
Mind Over Matter/ p.o. box 12247/ Portland, OR 97212
Quimby's/ 1854 W. North Ave/ Chicago, IL 60622
Shag Stamp/ p.o. box 298 / Sheffield S10 1YU/ UK
Bluestockings Books/ 172 Allen Street/ New York, New York 10002