Name and location..
Jamie Espino, Ft. Smith, Arkansas, USA

How long have you been making zines for?
I think I started in my senior year of high school, so about six years now.

What do you like to create zines about?
I hardly ever start with a specific subject in mind and then create a zine about it. Usually it’s just a way to organize and share work I’ve already made. But it varies from clothing to Drake to Google Earth photography.

What is your favourite zine/comic/book?
Honestly, reading anything other than comics makes me sleepy so I love Nancy, Peanuts, and Moomin. Nancy is pure and clever; probably my favorite character of all time. Travel by Yuichi Yokohama is also a beautifully drawn manga/graphic novel, plus it’s sans text. I only read it once like two years ago but I still think about it a lot. I will add that Sister Outsider is an amazing collection of Audre Lorde’s essays and speeches and it doesn’t make me fall asleep!

Tell us a bit more about your creative process..

My head works in finding similarities between things so I always have to have a lot of source material. Every now and then I sit down at the library with a stack of books and flip through images. Of course I keep lil notebooks where I storyboard and jot down info. Mostly tho, I will just make something when I’m in the mood.

What does it feel like to have your zine in the London College of Fashion Library’s Special Collections?
Libraries are important spaces because they allow access to resources you may not normally have. It makes me happy that not only my work, but other zines will be available to a wider audience.

What influenced Poorly Curated?
Well, Poorly Curated is the shop/brand I started so originally I wanted to do a knockoff catalog format to showcase the photography and styling of the clothes. The paper that Harbor Freight Tools uses for their ads is super nice and thin and I love the goofy sales tactics. However, it ended up being a zine comparing the photos with art and comics on a mid-weight cream card stock.

What one piece of advice would you give UAL students about zine making?
Zines are usually pretty cheap so don’t be afraid to make lots of changes to the content and layout. It’s the best and easiest time to experiment with your work.

You can find my zines on Etsy or peep my Nancy references on Instagram

This month we invite Lauren Hage author of Brazine! to talk about her creative process and work for Zinesters in LCF Special Collections.

Name and location…
Lauren Hage, Portland Oregon USA

How long have you been making zines for?
That’s kind of a hard question… I’ve been writing stories and poetry since I was a kid in the 90’s, but I didn’t seriously start to make zines until I moved to Portland in 2011 and found myself volunteering at a well-known zine publisher. I was, and still am, around so many talented zine makers, that you just can’t help but make them yourself.

What do you like to create zines about?
I’m all over the place regarding what I like to write about. I have zines on cooking, childhood events, an essay on genetics and PTSD, and fiction short stories. I’m currently working on collecting a decade’s worth of poetry into an art/poetry book.

What is your favourite zine/comic/book?
Oh, wow, there are too many to list. In general I gravitate more toward the visual, obscure, and abstract works. Usually the less words the better. Even if it’s stories told through stick figures, you can still convey deep emotions that can impact people’s lives.

Tell us a bit more about your creative process…
I tend to write for the therapy of it. I have PTSD and past traumatic events that I deal with by putting them into stories. If I have it written down, I don’t have to keep it in my head and obsess over it, and this makes me a happier and healthier individual.

What does it feel like to have your zine/s in the London College of Fashion Library’s Special Collections?
It feels amazing. I feel very lucky and appreciated. I’m glad that something I wrote can help others.

What influenced Brazine?
I had a very bad self-image coupled with the inability to find a bra that felt right. It wasn’t until I spent hours, maybe days, researching the internet that I finally found websites with information one needs to know to be able to fit themselves in a correctly fitting bra. I wanted to make this process easier and compiled all I learned into one easy-to-read short zine. Once I knew and felt a correctly fitting bra, my self-image got loads better.

What one piece of advice would you give UAL students about zine making?
I would say: write about, draw about, sound about, anything you want. That’s the beauty of zines, they can literally be about anything you want. It only matters if you like it and feel good about it. It’s a thing you can make that is totally yours and you can express feelings and teach even the smallest of things. I would say the only unwritten rule of zines is that you want your readers to leave your work with something they didn’t previously have before. Either that be a way to make split pea soup or dreaming of a faraway land with magical creatures.

laurenhage.com

Name and location..
Brandy Erdmann, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States

How long have you been making zines for?
I’ve been making zines and newsletters since I was 16, which means I started almost 17 years ago. I will admit, though, that between the ages of 20 and 25 I was completely absent from the world of zines.

What do you like to create zines about?
I don’t like to stick to any one subject, so I just create whatever is of interest to me at that moment. In high school, I started an anonymous newsletter that published the work of students that felt like they had no voice is our extremely conservative, racist institution. Following high school, I made zines that featured my terrible, angsty poetry. After a five-year hiatus from all things zines, I started Pixelated (a zine of various content). PIxelated was a collaborative zine featuring work revolving around a theme. For the past few years, I’ve focused mainly on list zines and zines about zines (how to present zine workshops, zine resources for the uninitiated, zine librarianship). My most recent creation, The Ideal Has Many Names, is a list of the many names I’ve bestowed upon my pet Himalayan cat.

What is your favourite zine/comic/book?
There are so many wonderful zines out there and I can’t choose one favorite zine. I do have a few favorite zine creator, though.
I love the work of Joe Carlough, Katie Haegele, Julia Eff, and Marc Wagner

In regards to comics, I love Megg, Mogg, and Owl; Questionable Content; the works of Lisa Hanawalt; Sex Criminals; Saga; and may more. I read a lot of comics.

As a librarian, I fit the stereotype that all we do is read all day. In trend with my answers to favorite zines and comics, I also read a lot of books and have many favorites. If I had to name just one favorite book, though, it would have to be Neil Gaiman’s American Gods.

Tell us a bit more about your creative process..
I try to write down zine ideas as they come to me but rarely do these ideas ever make it to print. I have generalized anxiety which manifests itself in a need for conditions to be just perfect before I can do much of anything. I prefer working in a well-organized, quiet space away from my pets and other distractions. I can’t even work to music because I’ll just end up fretting over the playlist rather than working on anything. Supplies need to be within arms reach but not cluttering the space and I prefer working by natural light. When the planets align perfectly, I can create a zine from idea to printed and stapled in a few hours. Interestingly, even though I start with a very neat and clean space, by the end of making a zine, everything isin utter disarray.

What does it feel like to have your zine/s in the London College of Fashion Library’s Special Collections?
It’s quite exciting to have my zine in the collection. When I was first contacted, I was both surprised and flattered to be asked.

What influenced Almost a Week of Beauty?
A couple years ago, I read an article about Korean skincare. I was intrigued by its complexity, seeming almost like a challenge than a practical daily regimen. As for myself, I’m by no mean high maintenance. I mean, I brush my hair maybe twice a week and still have no idea how contouring works. On a sleepless night I found myself shopping on Ebay for nothing in particular and somehow ended up looking through cute skincare products from the Korean brand Tonymoly. I found their fruit and animal-shaped packaging adorable but couldn’t justify spending a lot of money on products I probably wouldn’t use. Instead, I purchased a lot of 50 Korean skincare samples to try. When they arrived, I realized I had no clue what to do with the various ampoules, toners, serums, creams, and masks. Nor could I read Korean. After several hours of research on the products and how they fit into a skincare regimen, I thought it would be a fun challenge to actually take care of my skin for once! And what better way to document the journey than in a tiny zine?

What one piece of advice would you give UAL students about zine making?
Do what feels right. Zines should be exactly what you want them to be.

My shop: pixelatedzine.etsy.com
Instagram: zinehoarder

Brandy also supplied some great zine links for you to explore:
Barnard Zine Library (This is one of the best zine resources out there)
Joe Carlough
Katie Haegele 
Julia Eff
Marc Wagner