Kanye loves ’em. Bieber has one. Spike Jonze’s is a collector’s item. Zine fairs cover the country—and the world. George R.R. Martin made some that date all the way back to the 60s. Chloë Sevigny gets really personal with hers. At this point, it’s safe to say, zines are having their moment. Now, we’re putting you on the cutting-edge of zine-making.
In the DIY spirit of the original zine artists of the 20th and 21st centuries—and hell, even Thomas Paine’s “Common Sense”—The Creators Project is launching an all-out assault: The Offensive.
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We want to print your zine and put it inside VICE Magazine, so we’re giving you the next few weeks to download the Zean.it app, upload your finest 16 images into one print-ready publication, and hashtag #TCPOffensive. Then, a special panel of guest judges, including VICE photo editor Elizabeth Renstrom, The Creators Project’s Editor-in-Chief, Marina Garcia-Vasquez, and a super special guest judge TBA, will select the top zine, to be printed and distributed as an insert within the September Issue of VICE.
That’s right, here’s your chance to show the world your best/weirdest/gnarliest/most offensive and beautiful work, and get it published in the best magazine on earth (according to us). If you’ve been delaying the launch of your zine masterpiece for years, consider this the fire-under-your-ass you’ve been waiting for.
“The digital zine-making competition is a fun opportunity for The Creators Project to support young artists by encouraging unbridled creativity and giving it editorial attention,” says Marina Garcia-Vasquez, Editor-in-Chief of The Creators Project. “We are a publication born out of the desire to give digital artists recognition to a global community, so it makes sense that we revisit our tech and arts roots in new and captivating way.”
Since its inception, The Creators Project has been a proven platform for supporting the creation and distribution of original works to engage a global audience. That’s why, to launch The Offensive, we’re partnering up with Zean.it, a free, DIY zine-making platform by zine-makers for zine-makers. It’s pretty much the easiest way to make a zine ever: put down the glue and scissors, pick up your phone, and pick the 16 best images in your photo library. You’ll choose a full-bleed front and back cover, and a randomizing algorithm in Zean.it will decide whether your picked pics look better as one- or two-image per page spreads. Scale your images to your liking, and throw a title and some tags on it (like #TCPOffensive, hint, hint).
Then, all it takes is to hit “Upload & Share,” and you’ll have a zine that’s as easy to print as Melania Trump’s speech inspo—no collating necessary. Oh, and did we mention that Zean.it also gives you the ability to like and comment on the work of, as well as follow, your friends and fellow zine-makers around around the world?
We’ll let you figure that out for yourself, but in the meantime:
1) Download Zean.it (it costs exactly $free.fifty)
2) Create and upload your finest zine
3) Within the app, hashtag #TCPOffensive
And stay tuned to The Creators Project, where we’ll be rolling out exclusive zine-related content over the course of the next month. We’ll feature interviews with legendary zine-makers, oral histories of DIY zine-making traditions, and featurettes on the zines we love, all in anticipation of the announcement of our winner.
Stop scrolling through your timeline, start making zines, and get in on The Offensive today—before it’s too late.
Click here to view the official contest rules.
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