The Watermelon Lover's Quaranzine
The Watermelon Lover's Quaranzine
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A Collaborative Zine Made at the Height of Covid-19
A Collaborative Zine Made at the Height of Covid-19
This was a quarter-page size full-colour 30 page zine made with multiple people's contributions. I was the project manager and primary editor. I oversaw all layouts and did most of the extra illustration work. The project took approximately two months and was distributed in print and digital versions.
A call for submissions
A call for submissions
Initial calls for submissions were sent out over Instagram and collated with a Google Form. Over 20 contributors sent in their images and text in a wide variety of formats. It was a challenge to make this into a unified document, but we made it work.
The theme was anything that gave you joy or hope during the middle of the pandemic. This included poetry, drawings, recipes, self-care tips, and more.
Each page was made and edited individually in Photoshop, with the full zine layout done in InDesign
Formatting
Formatting
This 180° rotated spread illustrates the difficulty in working with multiple orientations in the same document
Making the zine in this format was tricky, as it combined folded quarter-page double spreads, as well as a full-size multi-page colouring foldout in the centre of the zine. This and printing in full-colour significantly increased the cost of the project, but the final result was gorgeous and worth the effort.
The format of the zine was tested using paper foldouts, and then the layouts were re-created in InDesign to create the final product. Each page was also designed to accommodate full bleed printing.
Making and assembling the finished product
Making and assembling the finished product
Approximately fifty zines were made and sent out by mail to an overwhelmingly positive reception. In the end, the unique art and content from so many came together surprisingly well and made something wholesome and fun.
We got all components of the zines printed at a local printer and then folded and assembled the middle pages ourselves. We then tied them up with a string bookmark in the centre and then mailed or hand delivered them.
Project Takeaways
Project Takeaways
The collaborative process for this project was one of my favorite aspects. Next time however I would constrain the design format more, asking people to keep their submission to a specific size and format, as this added significantly to the time taken to complete the editing.
I would focus on a larger-size black-and-white version of the next zine, with some full-colour pages. This would reduce cost and complexity significantly.
In the End
In the End
Overall this project was a success and a ton of fun to do!
If you want to view it for yourself or order a copy you can do so at watermelon.jottomadai.com or at the link below.
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