One Week Zine

I have wanted to publish my first zine for long time. Back in the 2018 summer I printed a zine after a trip to Barcelona, but onely gave it to my friends. I still wanted to make a zine targeted towards a more general public that I could sell online.

So an idea came to my mind at the beginning of the year and it stuck. The goal was to take pictures for a normal week to highlight all the unique and non-monotonous situations that can happen.

Film choice 

I decided to shoot the entire project in two rolls: the recently revived Kodak Ektachrome and a roll of Kentmere 400 pushed to 800. I wanted to try the new Kodak stock and I had read some reviews. They all talked about its small dynamic range and colors, and also agreed on its usefulness for soft light landscape photography. I thought the E100 could be a great choice for a cloudy Paris. I also wanted to use a roll of Kentmere as I was happy with the grain I had previously obtained.

Shooting

I shot both rolls on a Minolta Hi-matic I recently bought, as I wanted to get more used to range finders. I knew accurate metering would be crucial for the ektachrome’s small dynamic range. And yet I managed to screw up many frames. Some came out overexposed, some blurry due to slow shutter speeds and others came out of focus. Also, the lab managed to scratch the negatives.

Layout

Once I got the digital scans I started laying them out in Adobe Indesign. I already had a general idea of what I wanted for the cover before I started to shoot. I wanted a photo on the bottom half and the title on the top half written in a serif typeface.

The images were layed out for the most part in a sort of chronological order. I tried to pay special attention to which pictures could nicely fit side by side and which ones would be great on a double page.

Printing

There are many options when it comes to printing your zine. I am no expert but you can use a variety of online services or a local print shop or you can even print yourself. In most cases you will have to order a large amount of copies to get a decent price per zine. That can be problematic and there are now online services that allow you to print very small number of copies for a very good price.

I decided to go for a local print shop. I ordered 50 copies and paid too much. But at least the quality was fine and I didn’t encounter any problem during the process.

Selling

I have already bought many zines online so I thought it would be a great idea to sell “One Week” online.  

At first I wanted to set up a store in this website but it turned out to be a real hassle due to the online payment systems. So I went for the easier option: Etsy. It is THE online store for small creators.

 The payment system does not require to have a registered company and the running cost is very low. Their website and smartphone apps also allow for an easy use.

In conclusion, I am happy for having done this project. Although I am not proud of the outcome, this was my very first zine and the main objective was to learn. In the next one I will have no excuse. I will choose a more interesting subject and will use a more original layout. I will also have to do more efforts to market it correctly.