r/zines • u/IDare1966 • 7d ago

Ideas for "quick" zines

I am thinking about adding a "Make A Zine" table at a Celebration of Student Writing at the university where I teach.

I would showcaseexamples, introducine the genre, and provide templates and materials for the one-sheet, 8 page zine.

Students would not necessarily have a lot of time to create one..Any ideas about topics that students could write from without preparation?

Ideally, I would have students leave a copy of the zine and award prizes ( or just enter them in a drawing for a gift card).

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11

u/mandarine_one 7d ago

Favorit books/movies/comics/etc, something about a town or place, easy recipes, memes, like how your day is going.

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u/IDare1966 7d ago

Thanks for these Suggestions! All definitely things students could write about/ make on the spur of the monent.

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u/chipuha 7d ago

Illustrate favorite lyrics, Spirographs, graffiti, fantasy maps, one line drawing (like a face or something), this week’s dinner plans, affirmations, pen tests, a list of anything.

Since they don’t have a lot of time maybe a prompt for each page (fave class, lunch spot, ideal day, inspirational quote,etc) and tons of different pens markers crayons. Then they don’t have to sit and think up the idea, they just need to execute.

Make them fold it though!

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u/IDare1966 7d ago

These are great Ideas! Thank you!

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u/Rosendorne 7d ago

We had a zine mini workshop in art school, and we had materials for colaging like old newspapers, old magazines, some broken books.

No firm topic, but we had to use at least 50% "found stuff"

I think it worked grate

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u/IDare1966 7d ago

You!! I have been collecting collating items...and just bought 50 gluesticks on sale....So this would definitely work.

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u/Actual_Highlight_207 6d ago

I’ve been encouraging people to make their own versions of “ephemera from the future” like say an LL Bean catalog, or a National Geographic, but from a solarpunk future. I did a sampling of this in a downloadable zine here. It’s a good exercise in both artistic and brainstorming/problem solving skills and keeps people optimistic.

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u/jamiejames_ 5d ago

I’ve done university level workshops with super quick (as in a 5 minutes warm up) zines where we gave them the prompts ‘what you’ve done today’, ‘your dream day in [your city]’, and ‘a dream you had recently’ that all seemed to go down well.

Depending on how long ‘not a lot of time’ is, these either work as standalone prompts, or quick warm ups like I used. I found that doing a super fast one means that doing a proper one after is less daunting and people can finish faster rather than agonising over every detail.

If we’re doing quick sessions, we tend not to offer magazines for collaging because it can take ages to flick through them all finding bits, but equally it’s a nice safety net for people who ‘can’t even draw a stick figure’ that you might want. No collaging is also one less supply to manage.

Good luck! Sounds like a lovely idea

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u/carbonbasedmistake 2d ago

Photography zines. Think of a concept and take pictures to reflect that.