Printing technique/ Form

Yesterday I tried to print my zine and it didn't go down very well. I've printed a lot of zines before but for some reason every time I tried it failed. The method that I was using wasn't very fool proof - I took my pages into photoshop and resized them to be A7 size. I wanted them to be really small so that I could fit both sheets onto one A4 page to save on waste. A bit ironic considering it took 8 attempts to finally get it right. It just wouldn't work - it wouldn't align properly, it wouldn't print double sided, one side would be upside down etc etc

Thankfully my friend who is also really passionate about print helped me by showing me her method for printing zines double sided. She got me to make a simple InDesign document, add in my pages the right way up and in the right order (figured out by making a quick dummy copy), adding crop marks and exporting as a PDF. That way when I went to print I could just hit 'double sided print' instead of having to re-feed the paper. I'm really thankful for her showing me this method as it'll save me a lot of time and effort in the future. 

The finished zine experiment ended up being A6 instead of tiny A7 because of my confusion and panic. However, this works out as the type is so small (10pt, I think) that it's only just readable on A6 size. I think that if I wanted to try out A7 size - I would definitely have to stick to publishing one story over multiple pages to make it a readable size. 

I definitely want to try out some different zine techniques rather than just simple pamphlet style. Some I want to try out are: 

- Mini poster zine with slit in the middle 

I like the idea of this format because the aim is to print a lot of copies so they can be scattered around/ given out/ maybe sold. This method of production means that there's no binding involved - speeding up the process. 

- Multiple sheets/ zines packaged together

I like this format idea of having multiple elements to the zine pack as it means that more information can be published on a smaller scale. 

- I also like the idea of some sort of protective packaging. The idea is that the zine will be scattered about for people to find, I don't want them to get drenched in the rain. Some sort of plastic (maybe need to think of a sustainable alternative?) covering is needed. 

This could mean being packaged with plastic/ a sticker

Or card and staples