Bristol Zine Fair...

On Sunday I ventured into Bristol for what was a very rewarding Zine Fair.  It was small but special.  I met a really lovely Illustrator there, called Jess Bradley, who writes and illustrates these great Zines for children (see below).  She was incredibly kind and generous with her methods and she talked to me for a while about how she went about making and printing everything she produces (among other things sticker books, badges, key rings etc.).  I like the fact that she plays around with her paper, she doesn't have a tried and tested method that she sticks to.  You can't tell from the photo's but each of the Zines below are all different paper: gloss, matt and recycled.  I like them all.

http://www.jessbradley.com/

http://www.jessbradley.com/

http://www.jessbradley.com/

http://www.jessbradley.com/

http://www.jessbradley.com/

I talked to Jess about my ideas for Piccolo and she was very enthusiastic - her positive response was a real boost and she also very kindly said she'd be happy to help with any questions I had putting it together - people are grand.

This is another Zine I picked up - it's aimed at adults but it's doing the same sort of thing I want to do with literature and poetry (it's also just really gorgeous so I most likely would have got it anyway!)

It's made by sisters Jemma and Katie Green, they've included work from writers and illustrators they both know - a fabulous collaborative project.  

Happily I discovered that Katie is also the author of the Green Bean Zine (see below) which I've already bought in the past and have been keeping an eye on.  I love her simple style and I can see both Zines helping form a style I'll end up using for my own.

http://katiegreenbean.blogspot.co.uk/

http://katiegreenbean.blogspot.co.uk/

http://katiegreenbean.blogspot.co.uk/

http://katiegreenbean.blogspot.co.uk/

Finally I found this little gem for only 50p - it's all knowledge and ALL knowledge helps!

And ANOTHER parcel from America...

I don't know quite why it seems to always be American children's magazines that seem to pull me in the most but really I've seen very few British children's magazines to explore.  Here are another few beauties from the 60's and 70's that arrived in the post today - I particularly love the tag line: "A Character Building Magazine" - food for thought...

A Little Current Inspiration...

Little Monsters...

I want to have sections in the Zine that each correspond to the colours of the rainbow and each colour stands for 'activities' or 'stories', 'poetry' or 'things to make' etc.  One of the 'things to make' I want to include is Sock Monsters.  I've always intended to have a go at this myself and just never got round to it - I needed to make sure that it wouldn't be too difficult for a child/early teen to make so I had a go myself (see above).  I'm pretty pleased with the results and am going to be making some more, but this time taking pictures at each stage.  I'll either include the photos or make drawings from the photographs, I haven't decided which yet!  I also want to get some kids to have a go using my instructions, I'll then include pictures of them holding their masterpieces...

LOOK WHAT ARRIVED TODAY!!

Well, WHAT an exciting package arrived all the way from the good old U.S. of A today:

The most joyful pile of children's magazines from the 1940's - 'Directed Play Moulds Character' - I love the colour choices and the way they're printed.  They're pretty big (35cm by 26cm), which is far larger than I want to do, but the fonts and graphics are seriously pleasing.  I'm going to have a good read through them and try and choose some good page examples to put up on here - but in the meantime, I think the covers are pretty lovely in themselves... It does keep coming up that American children's magazines are consistently better.  I spoke with one of my tutors today who remembers having a weekly magazine that he loved as a child - amazingly he's kept them and is going to bring some in for me to look through - and he's from the UK, so maybe he can prove me wrong!

To Zine or not to Zine...

Size matters - I've been running it over and over in my head about size and shape and paper type and inks and printing costs and binding costs etc., etc.  I would love to make this the most beautiful Magazine that ever was, but I need to face facts that ability and budget are constricting.  Ability I can work on, not so much the budget...  Having always had an A5 size in mind it suddenly occurred to me that if I was clever about it, there's no reason why I couldn't print them myself - it can still be A5 but just more like a hand-made Magazine - a Zine in fact.

So then I started thinking about a Zine for children, why not?  If anything it makes it more current, more accessible, more affordable for both the maker and the buyer and a Zine can always grow up into being a Magazine if that's the way it was destined to go.  Another exciting development.

So I've started doing some research and I think there are a few Zines for kids out there - but it definitely needs to be explored some more.  In the meantime I'm going to be forging ahead with the Zine dream in mind.  Now the only problem I have is the title - Piccolo Zine doesn't look nearly as good as Piccolo Magazine... time for a rethink on the font?

Further font findings...

The garish colouring of the spam logo that had so inspired me, as mentioned in an earlier post, was reminding me of something else, I just couldn't put my finger on it.  Then whilst doing something mundane, my brain slotted into place and reminded me of Edward Ruscha and his 'OOF' which he painted in 1962.  Once that kicked in I suddenly remembered all the Pop Artists of that era whose work I've always really loved.  I thought I'd have a look and see which ones may be particularly relevant and this is what I came up with:

Another by the brilliant Edward Ruscha, also painted in 1962

Edward Ruscha, 1964

Of course it wasn't only Ruscha who used font as subject matter, I also love these paintings by Robert Indiana:

1968

1969

1966

And finally, the genius that is Sir Peter Blake:

Puzzlements...

It's far too early for me to be looking at actual finished content for the Magazine - but having looked at length at fonts and how words and lettering work together it reminded me how much I used to love word puzzles, particularly wordsearches.  I adored words (and still do) and searching for them in a soup of letters was always a treat - I decided to have a go at making my own for the Magazine and as a starting point I'm pretty pleased with it:

I wanted to muck around with the fonts and make it feel a bit more modern - but the danger in doing that is to make the puzzle more visually confusing.  So I asked a dyslexic friend to road-test it for me and the results were pretty positive - next test is to get some kids to have a go!

Adventures in Fontland...

Having decided on a name I needed to decide upon a 'look' for the magazine.  I had assumed, as most of my influence is from vintage children's illustration, books and magazines, that my own would be of a similar look.  However choosing fonts has had an interesting influence on my decision.

I found this dust jacket from a book all about cooking with Spam, which, funnily enough, was being thrown out.  I HATE Spam, but I love the graphics, the colours and fonts they use - and lo and behold, who'd have thunk it, Spam became a bit of a guiding light...

It reminded me hugely of a very 80's, graphic style that, probably through osmosis, I really love.  Strong primary colours, rainbows, huge curved lettering - I decided to see what I could find on the Internet that might satisfy my nostalgia or further spur me on...

...and that's when it dawned on me: everything I loved in the 80's came from America (including Cricket Magazine!).  I'm not at ALL sure what effect this knowledge is going to have, but I DO know that I want my Magazine to be inclusive and certainly not leaning towards a specific country in an era that has been and gone!  So I am reassuring myself that I will only borrow aspects of the bits I like...

Free Fonts:

I went online to have a look at what fonts were out there and found a cornucopia of free fonts - having had no real need for extra-curricular fonts before, I had no idea that they were out there - I've been missing out!  Here are just some of my favourites that I'd like to use for the Magazine:

As you can probably tell from this Blog's header, I've pretty much made my decision.  I love the geometric, angular, in-your-face qualities of this font: 

I like how the OLO looks like a nose and glasses - that's something I need to look at for a logo or continuous little cartoon character that pops up throughout the Magazine.  

I also love how the A's look like Mountains.  It still has that 80's vibe about it but more in a way that some of the best bits of 80's graphics and design have come back into the current mainstream.  I really think it works and I'm pretty excited about it!