50 Things You Could Make a Zine About

An idea becomes easier to use when it suggests what will go on the pages. “My life” is a large subject. “Six objects I keep beside my bed” gives you something to select, describe and arrange.

The prompts below are starting points. Change the number, location or approach to suit what you have.

Everyday things and places

1. Six objects you keep beside your bed, and why.
2. A map of places where you wait.
3. The sounds of your street at different hours.
4. Things repaired instead of replaced.
5. The contents of one drawer, carefully labelled.
6. A week of meals with one sentence about each.
7. Signs you pass so often you stopped noticing them.
8. The changing view from one window.
9. A guide to your favourite place to sit.
10. Objects you carry but rarely use.

Memory and experience

11. The story of a name you use.
12. Instructions you wish someone had given you.
13. A routine that changed after moving.
14. Three versions of the same memory.
15. A day described through what you touched.
16. Things you learned from one person.
17. A small decision that took a long time.
18. Your first attempt at a skill.
19. An ordinary place you miss.
20. A timeline of changing tastes.

Drawing and visual experiments

21. Drawings made with one continuous line.
22. The same object drawn at six distances.
23. Colour combinations found on one walk.
24. Collages using only packaging you already have.
25. Rejected sketches with notes about what interested you.
26. A comic about a minor misunderstanding.
27. An imaginary museum of household objects.
28. One shape repeated until it becomes something else.
29. A wordless story told through shadows.
30. An illustrated glossary of invented objects.

Photography

31. Photographs of repairs in public places.
32. Six pictures of the same doorway.
33. Reflections that almost look like another scene.
34. A sequence moving from very close to far away.
35. Photographs connected by one colour.
36. Empty spaces where something used to be.
37. A place shown only through its edges.
38. Objects photographed before and after use.
39. A familiar route without showing its landmarks.
40. A photo sequence about the end of a day.

Interests, media and small obsessions

41. An annotated playlist for one particular journey.
42. A close reading of one scene from a film.
43. Questions you still have about a favourite game.
44. A guide to a fictional place, clearly labelled as fiction.
45. Your own internet search habits, recreated without private data.
46. A glossary of phrases used in your friend group, with permission.
47. Six tabs you keep open and what you hope to do with them.
48. A tiny guide to something you know unusually well.
49. An argument for an overlooked everyday pleasure.
50. A zine about the process of making this zine.

Turn one prompt into pages

Choose the prompt for which you already have material or can gather it easily. Write a sentence explaining the issue's focus.

For an eight-page zine, reserve a front and back cover, leaving six inside pages. Decide what each inside page contributes: an example, a stage in a sequence or a different view of the subject.

If two pages do the same job, combine them or choose a more useful contrast. If the idea needs extensive research, give it that time rather than squeezing unverified claims into a quick exercise.

Finish with a title that tells a reader what kind of experience to expect.

Next: How to Plan an 8-Page Zine.