A black felt beret, tilted low. Two silver ball earrings. A gaze that holds yours a beat longer than is comfortable. Then, along the bottom of the photograph, a name between two white stars: ★RUTH AKELE★. This is the cover of issue 2 of Je M’appelle, the zine series New York fashion photographer Joshua Jordan publishes through Studio Jordan. The title translates as my name is, and every issue answers it with one person.
Joshua’s own website files these covers alongside the editorial ones he has shot for magazines such as Vogue España and Elle Germany. In April 2025 he returned for another set of the Ruth issue. Mike’s first note on the series still holds: fashion photography printed this way “absolutely oozes cool”. Here is the zine, part by part.
A beret, two stars and ZINE 02 on the cover
A monochrome portrait fills the front, framed by a slim white border that widens at the top to carry the masthead. Je M’appelle sits there in a heavy black sans serif, with ZINE 02 tucked small at the right like a catalogue number. Everything else belongs to the photograph: the nap of the felt, the light on her shoulder, the slow turn of her head.
Her name is the only flourish. White capitals in a chunky stencil style display face, bracketed by stars and printed straight over the picture, it works like a stamp on a passport. Underneath, a matt laminate seals the 300gsm silk board, so the blacks stay deep and velvety while the surface shrugs off fingerprints from the many hands a promotional zine passes through.
A white page that does the introducing
Open it and the first spread is simple and sure of itself. The left page is bare white with RUTH and AKELE stacked in the same stencil face, now in black. Opposite, Ruth in profile, wrapped in white cloth, long drop earrings hanging like plumb lines. One name, one face, nothing more.
Planning a series of your own? Borrow this. Give every issue a title page that makes the introduction, and the photographs never need a caption. There is more on sequencing a single subject in our article on building a printed portfolio around one way of looking.
Pictures that travel through the staples
From there the sequence swings between colour and monochrome. In one colour spread Ruth sits swathed in an enormous white sheet on a white set, the fabric spilling over both pages and through the fold without a break. In another she reclines with a hand behind her head, warm skin against cool cotton. Then the palette drops to black and white for a tight portrait split by the gutter, fingers laced at her ear, window light glowing behind.
A stapled booklet has no glued spine to swallow the inner margin, so a photograph can run from one page into the next and meet itself at the fold. The 130gsm silk inside helps as well. Its smooth coated surface holds the fine grain of skin and fabric, and keeps the monochrome pages rich and inky. Running your own images across a spread? These notes on lining up pictures that cross a stapled fold show how to build the file so both halves meet.
Sized for a jacket pocket, built as a set
At 166 x 127mm the zine is smaller than A5 and closer to square, a custom trim Studio Jordan keeps for the whole series. Mike’s notes describe them as handheld booklets, “perfect to fit in your pocket, perfect to flick through”. Every issue follows the same layout, so each new name joins a family on the shelf, and the run of covers grows into something people want to collect.
That consistency is a working tool as well as a style. Mike’s list of uses is practical: hand a copy to the model, take a few to a pitch for new work, or leave them on a shop counter as a promotional piece. If your output comes in shoots rather than books, a fixed template and a custom trim let you publish one subject at a time and still end up with a collection that hangs together. Our page on portfolio booklets for fashion and portrait photographers covers the options.
Another set of issue 2, bound for New York
Joshua’s April email was brief. He wanted another set of the Ruth issue, wondered whether we still had the files, and attached a low resolution PDF for an estimate, with the full file following by transfer. He also asked if we had a minimum order. We don’t: you can print a single copy.
After that it moved quickly. We checked the artwork, confirmed the order with him in New York, and returned a final PDF proof the same day. Two days later everything was finished and packed for the studio’s usual address. A fortnight after his first email, the courier was at his door.
Shoot people for a living and fancy a pocket series of your own? Try a custom trim like 166 x 127mm in the price calculator and see what your first issue would cost.
PaperbacksA5, 44 pages, perfect bound£246for 100
Product cataloguesA5, 28 pages, stapled£166for 100
