This zine has two names and a spine too slim to print either of them. The front cover says PLAYGROUND in heavy slab serif beside a modern train at a covered platform. On the reverse, the same zine answers to Elfantasma, with a second train waiting beneath a hillside. El fantasma is Spanish for the ghost, and once you know that, you start spotting him everywhere.
Inside is Isaia’s photographic study of railway signage and graffiti on trains across Europe, printed as a slim A5 photo zine by our zine printing team. It is one of the neatest, most economical ways we know to put a photo zine into print, and its pages hold several tricks we’d happily see in your zine next.
Give one zine two faces
Most zines have a front and a back. This one has two fronts. A different photograph and a different title on each cover turn a thin publication into an object with a split personality. Pick it up back to front and you get a different book.
The second name pays off inside, too. A cartoon ghost face, painted big in black and white, turns up on carriage after carriage, including on trains carrying SNCF logos. It is a lovely rhyme with the back cover. If a motif keeps turning up in your own photographs, think about giving it a title of its own and letting it claim a cover.
Keep the gloss on the outside
Our notes on this zine start with the cover, and so do we. The 300gsm gloss board, gloss laminated on top, shimmers against a pristine white surround, so the zine seems to glow on the table. That double layer of sheen suits a subject made of spray paint and painted metal, keeps the blacks deep, and stands up to scuffs in a bag.
Inside, the sheen steps down. The 34 pages are 130gsm silk, smooth to the touch, with the neon greens, night-time blues and pink glows staying vivid but without a mirror finish to fight under a lamp. The lighter weight keeps the whole thing easy to post and pleasant to flick through. For colour-hungry photography, a gloss cover over silk pages is a combination worth stealing.
Let your page count choose the binding
At 38 pages including the cover, this zine is only just thick enough to perfect bind with a square back. There is a trade: it gets the square edge and the bookish feel, at the cost of any spine lettering. Hence the two names on the covers. The titles had to live somewhere.
If your own extent lands near that threshold, decide early which matters more to you. Stapling suits slimmer zines and lies flatter; a glued spine looks more like a book on a shelf. Our overview of which binding suits which page count lays out the choices, and if you go perfect bound at this thickness, put your title on the covers instead.
Frame most pictures, then break your own rule
Most of Isaia’s photographs sit inside a white border, a gallery-style frame that slows you down and gives each carriage its own moment. Then a spread breaks the pattern. A single panel of black and neon green graffiti on a grey carriage runs full bleed across both pages and straight through the gutter, and the change of scale hits like a train bursting out of a tunnel.
Some spreads pack four pictures into a grid: carriage exteriors beside tagged interiors and orange seats. Others hand a single night shot a whole page, a ghost face on a carriage or a red-lit coupling glowing out of the dark. The sequence hops between stations and drifts into night, so the zine carries you along like a ride. Typography stays out of the way. A title on each cover, then nothing but photographs.
Check your neons before you sign off
Graffiti photography lives on saturated colour, so before press we gave Isaia a clear heads-up about the shift from RGB to CMYK. Screen colours, especially electric greens and blues, often print a touch calmer, and knowing that in advance avoids a nasty surprise when the box arrives. Our guide to converting cover colours to CMYK explains why it happens and what to adjust.
A quick checklist we would give anyone in Isaia’s position:
- Convert your brightest images early and compare them on screen.
- Confirm your final page count before you ask for a final price.
- Look at your proof for pictures that cross the gutter.
Isaia’s page count did change partway through, and we re-quoted promptly so he always knew where he stood. When the zines arrived, he wrote in:
“Hi Team, just wanted to thank you, received the books yesterday and was really happy with the results.”
Isaia, photographer
Isaia’s build, 34 silk pages behind a gloss finished 300gsm cover, is simple to repeat, and our A5 photo zine printing page walks you through the papers, finishes and bindings to weigh up for yours.
He has since returned with a new project. Your own A5 zine, built from whatever your camera roll keeps returning to, is a few clicks away from a price.
PaperbacksA5, 44 pages, perfect bound£246for 100
Product cataloguesA5, 28 pages, stapled£166for 100
