Skip to Main Content

Zines and Zine-Making at UCSB Library: Teaching and Facilitating Zine Workshops

How Can I Use Zines in My Courses?

  1. Assigned Readings
    1. You can assign zines as reading for your course. You can find many zines online related to a number of topics or encourage students to visit the Social Justice Zine Collection at UCSB Library and identify a zine relevant to course topics. For a listing of zines that are freely available online, see the list of Digital Zine Collections. 
    2. You can integrate zines, primary sources, and alternative media into your course and encourage your students to attend zine-making events on and off campus. 
  2. References
    1. You can encourage students to seek out zines and incorporate them into the research process as legitimate sources worthy of inclusion in scholarly research
  3.  Zine Assignments 
    1. You can assign individual or group zines as an alternative or complement to an academic paper in your class. For examples of what these finished zines look like, check out the Simmons University Student Created Zine Collection.

Want to host a zine workshop?

There are many online resources to prepare you to facilitate a zine workshop. Below is a short list of some things to consider when designing a zine workshop for your community!

  1. Decide which zine making materials are necessary for your workshop. 
    1. Are your participants making physical zines during the workshop?
      1. Then you'll want to have the basics for making a mini or half size zine: paper, writing/drawing utensils, magazines, scissors, glue
    2. Are your participants making digital zines during the workshop?
      1. Then you'll want to decide which website or tool to introduce and ask folks to use during the session
        1. Canva, Issu, and Google Slides are good places to start!
  2. Decide what your intended goal or outcome for the workshop will be
    1. Do you want each participant to create their own zine they can take home with them?
      1. I would recommend having some templates or instructions to share with participants who have never made or folded a zine before. YouTube is a good place to start and has many tutorials for folding different size zines!
        1. Making Zines #1: Folding and Cutting Zines
        2. How to Make a Mini Zine
  3. Decide if you will be making copies of zines or zine pages your participants made during the workshop
    1. If you will be compiling zine pages after the workshop and formatting into a single zine to scan/copy and share with participants and your community, you will want to verify what your printing capabilities are
      1. Do you have a printer that can scan and print double sided? You will want to determine if you can print multiple copies of the zines made in your workshop prior to the workshop day. 
  4. Some helpful tips
    1. Provide a list of generative themes, ideas, and/or quotes to help folks get started with their zine making
    2. Provide handouts and instructive materials like this "How to Fold an 8 page Mini Zine"
    3. Provide example zines of differing sizes, topics, and authorial voices for inspiration!

google slides zine template

Login to LibApps