Leeds Zine Fair

This summer a friend of mine (Lottie Pencheon) invited me to table with her at Leeds Zine Fair. I agreed to go despite only having a couple of weeks to prepare and only one zine already (and not printed)!

I brought this zine I made for PPP with me. Due to summer studio restrictions I couldn't print on the paper I wanted so the copies didn't 'feel' as nice in the hand but as I had to hand stitch them (no stapler) this provided a nicer touch.

With only a few weeks to go I rushed to get a set of zines made and printed. There wasn't a lot of planning involved and I panicked to make more quantity over quality, which I regret. The zines had little thought content and the visuals themselves weren't great either.

Bitter Boy was an attempt at making a comic/ narrative with no preplanning in one night. I thought this could lead to something visually and ideally interesting but just didn't make sense. " It doesn't make much sense but the pictures are nice". This isn't something I aim for!

Diner was just a collection of images with a very loose theme of America. I didn't think it would be popular but it sold the most. I do wonder if this was because it was the cheapest zine!

Hotdog Hotdog was a hotdog bound collection of dog images. Content wise it makes the most sense, even though it is a simple idea. Someone said they would have bought it if it was about cats, maybe I need to know my audience better!

… and following that I don't think I knew the audience for this fair very well, at all. The zine fair was focussed more on zines with political content and there was definitely a low ratio of illustrators. Still, it was my first time selling at such an event and I managed to make some money! What I learned most about was 

• knowing my audience
• planning
• quality over quantity (I almost didn't have enough space anyway)

Thinking it would be more like an illustration fair I made other non-zine goods, which didn't sell at all. However I have sold some of these, and the zines that did not sell on an online shop, which I advertised through social media.

As mentioned before in PPP I like to see my illustration in a physical format. But I did find making badges and tote bags less enjoyable than drawn illustrations, which may suggest I'm better/ enjoy print format more. Even though I don't think these were the best things I've produced (far from it) it did teach me something about production.