The rise of counterculture and the underground press in the 1960s really started the self-publishing movement, but it was the punk rock explosion in mid-70s Britain and America that really kick-started the fanzine movement. It's this period that we're going to focus on in this tutorial by showing you how to create your own contemporary take on classic punk Zine design. Fanzines were made (as the name suggests) by true fans of the music, or whatever subject they were writing about. More often than not, the producers had little or no design or art skills but managed to create some of the most ground-breaking, exciting, visceral, shocking and downright amazing visual art that has ever been made.
A lot of the techniques used by the exponents of fanzine design are much underused in the digital world of contemporary commercial art, where it can be all too easy to let everything happen inside your G5. We want to show you how to get your hands dirty again, to play and experiment with cut-and-paste techniques, to get out that Letraset that you've been saving for a rainy day and to ignite that passion you get from designing for a subject that you really believe in for no other reason than because you can. Not only should this help you produce a great fanzine, but it should inspire you in your work on any number of other projects.
