 and welcome to Design at Home. I'm Tiffany, an educator at Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum. And today, we're going to be talking about zines and how designers and artists are using them to tell a more inclusive and diverse story. The word zine is short for a word that you might be familiar with. Magazine. But when we talk about zines, we're not talking about one of those glossy publications that you might see at a magazine stand. Usually, zines are a small circulation of self-published works. Often they're made up of collage texts or images or even original artworks and writings. They often have a deliberate and edgy DIY cut and paste quality to them that makes them stand out from other commercial publications like newspapers or magazines. Zines cut their start as a way for artists and designers to express their opinions and beliefs that might not otherwise be represented in mainstream media. Zines can be anything and everything, but one thing that many zines have in common is that they can be a powerful expression of individual or shared identities. For a long time, the most popular zines were in grayscale, using a photocopier or printer to make them. But today, zines come in all different colors, shapes, and sizes. The diversity of their form and content is truly a representation of the diversity of the people who make them. Zines are powerful and it's no wonder that some of the most powerful cultural and social movements have used zines as a way to communicate their thoughts and ideas. Let's take a look at some of the ways that people, including artists and designers, have used zines as a powerful way to share their interests and stories. While people have been sharing their thoughts and ideas for hundreds of years using self-published pamphlets and documents that you might even call proto-zines, the way that we know zines today really came into form in the 1920s. Some of these early zines included The Comet by Science Correspondents Club and Fire, an African American literary magazine published during the Harlem Renaissance by prominent figures such as writer and poet Langston Hughes. Later in the 1970s, zines popularity blew up in the punk and rock and roll scenes, transforming it into the perfect medium for sharing political and social ideas. The use of zines contributed to amplifying voices of movements like the feminist movement and the queer movement of the 1970s, 80s, and 90s. Check out fashion designer Willie Smith, featured in Cooper Hewitt's most recent exhibition, Willie Smith's Street Couture. Willie Smith was a pioneer in making fashion that was for everyone. He designed clothes that were gender neutral and that actively encouraged people to express themselves freely. It was very important to him that no one was excluded. As part of the 70s and 80s gay community himself, Willie would have been familiar with the power of zines to transmit important information and ideas. He created zines and used zine motifs, such as collage images, graphic illustrations, and a typewriter font, to share and present his own versatile fashion lines. This was not only an expression of his own identity, but it also signaled to diverse communities that his fashions were inclusive and for everyone. Zines continue to be a dynamic form of community building and self-expression today. Now, many zines are published specifically to be viewed online and you can find both digital and physical archives of zines through groups like the Queer Zine Archive Project and the Barnard Zine Library. Inspired by the ways that zines have amplified the voices of diverse communities, such as the LGBTQ plus community, we're going to learn how to craft a zine in celebration of our own identities. Let's get started. Today, our design challenge is to design a zine that represents part of your identity. This could be anything about who you are, from what you like to where you live, to anything else that you feel like makes you you. First, let's gather our materials. You will need a piece of paper, something to draw with, like a pen or a pencil, something to add color with, like markers, paints, or crayons. If you'd like to collage, you'll need a pair of scissors and magazines or pictures to cut out from and some glue to glue it down. To get started, I'm going to show you one way that you can fold your paper to make a zine. But remember, there's no right or wrong way to do it so you can format your zine however you would like. Step one, fold your paper into eight equal parts. Fold the creases back and forth until the creases aren't stiff. Step two, unfold your paper completely and then fold it in half along the center horizontal fold. Step three, with your paper folded, use a pair of scissors to cut across the fold to the center of the page. Step four, separate the two cut parts separate the two cut pieces across the horizontal fold while you fold across the vertical fold. Step five, fold the two outer flaps over top the two inner flaps. It should look like a small book at this point with a front and a back cover and six blank pages inside. This will be the start of your zine. Step six, now that your zine has been assembled it's time to fill it in with your thoughts and ideas. There are lots of different ways that you can tell the story of your identity. Will you do it through words or pictures? Will you tell about one specific part of your identity or about lots of different things that make you you? Because no two people are the same, no two zines will be the same. To help you get some inspiration, here are a few more examples of zines that friends and other Cooper Hewitt educators have made. How did you tell the story of your identity? We would love to see what you design. If you or an adult would like to share it with us you can post it on Instagram or Twitter using the hashtag Smithsonian EDU. Because zines are meant to spread thoughts and ideas we would encourage you to share your identity-inspired zine with your friends and community. Thank you so much for tuning in. For more ways to experience design at home check out our website, cuberhewitt.org or you can head over to our Smithsonian Learning Lab page. Till next time!