Custom size photo zine Peregrinos and the case for going compact

• Format: Custom compact size, portrait photo zine
• Cover: Silk, unlaminated
• Inside Pages: Silk
• Printing: Full colour throughout
• Binding: Stapled (saddle stitched)

Get close to the fold of the red cover and the ink begins to crack, showing pale flecks of paper fibre along the spine. There is no lamination on Peregrinos to smooth that over. Mike spotted it straight away and liked it, because it gives the zine a rawness that suits a story told in dust and hoofprints.

Peregrinos, Spanish for pilgrims, is photographer Leon Foggitt’s record of the Romería de El Rocío, the springtime pilgrimage that carries riders and decorated wagons across Western Andalusia to a small, sandy town. Leon, who works between London and Bristol, first went in 2019 and returned in 2024 to photograph it, chasing quiet, atmospheric pictures rather than a plain record. Matt Martin designed the zine, and it was self-published in 2025. Mike’s first note on it reads “muy muy stylish”. Here are five ideas from it worth lifting for a photo zine of your own.

Go compact

The trim is a short, compact custom size, and Mike is a fan precisely because we so rarely see it. Most photo zines settle on A5 or A4. Step off that path and your zine stands apart on a crowded table before anyone has read the title.

A smaller page also changes how photographs behave. Spreads turn intimate rather than panoramic: you hold the zine close and the riders fill your view. Custom sizes are routine for us, and our guide to zine trim sizes beyond the A series walks through what is possible.

Leave it bare

Lamination adds a protective film and an even sheen. Skip it and the silk cover keeps its own surface, faint line of fibres at the fold included. You give up some scuff resistance and gain a cover that looks made by hand and press rather than sealed in plastic. If your zine will live in a rucksack, laminate. If it is a photographic object meant to be kept, consider leaving it bare, and compare laminated and unlaminated stocks side by side before you decide.

Commit to red

Mike calls this a strong cover design, and the red is the reason. It is sharp, and on silk it turns very bold indeed. A single horse and rider, printed as a negative in pale pink and white, stands centred under PEREGRINOS in a flared, chiselled serif. Flip the zine and a matching rider fills the back beside LEON FOGGITT, so the wraparound reads as one poster.

The colour carries on inside. A solid red page faces a portrait of a woman crowned with red carnations, tying the flowers back to the cover. Pick one colour, use it outside and bring it back once inside, and a slim zine becomes recognisable at a glance.

Mind the margins

The photographs are large and attention grabbing, yet each sits with just enough white space that the double page spreads never turn cramped. The sequence keeps changing gear:

• riders and horses at golden hour, running full bleed across the gutter;
• two framed pictures of riders under trees, side by side, ringed with generous white;
• a rider in a wide-brimmed hat, in profile, facing a blank page all his own;
• a closing essay set in plain sans serif type, describing whitewashed houses with wooden verandas, sandy boulevards and flamenco drifting through the air.

That alternation of drama and pause gives a slim zine its pace. Plan your edit as a rhythm as well as a set of best shots.

Pair the silks

Cover and inside pages are both silk, and Mike rates the combination for keeping the whole zine light. Inside, the silk lends an atmospheric glow to all that movement: low sun, haze and kicked up sand hold their warmth, while hooves and flounced skirts stay sharp. Our comparison of zine stocks, silk against uncoated covers the alternatives.

Our part was the print and the finish: holding the cover red at full strength, keeping the golden light warm, trimming to that compact size and stapling through the fold. We would happily trim your next zine to a size nobody expects: start a custom size zine quote.