After being taken on a trip to the journal and zine section at the RCA Kensington Library, we were asked to bring a zine to the next class. I noticed that the library had a huge collection of mass/commercial publicated zines. I wanted to look at some niche zines by upcoming artists so I went scavenging. I found this bookstore called Housmans which sells new and secondhand publications on progressive politics. I also ordered some zines online.

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Normal is an Indian Queer Zine. I have seen nothing like it before. They are collated works by Indians across the world. I understood about colour harmonies and different ways to layout texts from this piece. I also liked how they arranged their ‘chapters’, by finding a common link to thread one piece to the next. Their index page was a piece of art in itself.

This photography zine didn’t have a cover, binding, index, intro or any text per se. Yet it managed to grasp me with its visual layouts. The book was held together with a single piece of elastic which can be removed so that one can have each individual page separately, or reorder them together as per their wish as the pages didn’t have any numbers either.

This entire book had publications by different authors. Each one had their own font and layout technique but the string tying everything together were their choice of colours. They used only three colours, blue, red and black throughout their entire publication. This however, would not work out in the case of a fine art zine also the colours get monotonous to the eye.

I really enjoyed the harmony of colour and print in this particular book. Each photograph has its own text and create something new when published together.

I got number 25/30 in this series of zines. I like how its a limited print gives it more exclusivity. This zine was formed like a collage, with images and cut out paper texts. But it was carefully curated, thus, giving it an elevated backyard feel.

I liked how they hand printed on prints throughout their zine, thus making each zine unique and different.

This zine was free and though I liked the idea behind it, I never ended up reading it. I feel that our zine should give importance to negative space and have room to breathe.

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This is the mini book I ordered online. Our jacket covers are subtly inspired by this. I love each and every single page. It is easy to navigate and it is consistent and organized in the layout but grasps the readers eye with its content. Something we would definitely consider in our final zine.