Fanzine (ish) Thread

[jonogulls]

I sent a PM to Richie but he hasn't answered so I'll ask everyone here, as I'm sure you have sufficient knowledge.

I'm at college and taking a media and business course. As part of my portfolio myself and a mate are producing a fanzine-type magazine but with news from the college etc rather than about the Albion. So........I was just wondering. What programmes do you need to produce the fanzine? Can it be bought (downloaded) or will it be on the college computer? Who do I get to publish it? Printers? What would the cost be of a 30 (ish) page mag? Any other hints or tips would be much appreciated. Cheers.

 

[Turkey]

You'd want to use a programme called Quark. I think it's quite expensive though.

I think we used West Sussex Litho? I really should know but it was a few months ago.

Cost depends on paper quality and how many pages are in colour. You'll need quite a bit of cash up front and have a good idea how many you'll sell to get your money back.

 

[jonogulls]

I actually live in London mate so would the easiest thing to do would be to look up 'Printers' in the Yellow Pages. I'm thinking of about 30 pages, maybe the front cover in colour, not too bothered about paper quality as long as it's readable. Maybe sell them around the £1 mark? Anywhere to ahem..download Quark as I'm a cheap student or are there other programmes you can use? I mean Publisher or maybe another specialised piece of software? The cheaper the ideas, the better.

Cheers.

 

[Turkey]

Can't help you there bud. I think printers would rather you used Quark (dont ask me why - Roz would know) although I guess there's nothing to stop you using another programme.

 

[fatboy]

Ask Richie - he is the expert.

 

[Gwylan]

You could use InDesign, that's about two-thirds of the price of Quark. But there are lots of pirated copies going around if you can blag one.

If you want something basic, you could just use a Word template. It depends how sophisticated you want to be. Like with most things, you get what you pay for.

Have you thought of using Acrobat and getting them copied and bound by ProntaPrint (or a similar copy shop). It won't be such good quality but it will work out a lot cheaper.

 

[jonogulls]

Not too bothered about quality as long as it's not too amateurish. How do I use acrobat then? Would that definetly be cheaper option?