Confession from our print room: hairline white borders make us nervous. A slim frame of paper round a photograph leaves the guillotine nowhere to hide. Let the trim drift a fraction and one edge fattens while the opposite edge thins to a thread, and the eye catches it instantly. Mike admits the borders in Inner Space gave him cold sweats.
They came out even. We trimmed Dusan Maletic’s first zine accurately and consistently across the whole order, so the frames look designed rather than accidental. Borders were the toughest puzzle on this job, though not the only one. Dusan was making his first zine in Canva Pro, software he had never used before, and he was new enough to Texas to call himself “a new Texan” on the title page. He also wanted to go bigger than 210mm square, where the price steps up. Each hurdle had a fix you can borrow for your own square zine printing project.
Hairline borders on a square photo zine
The borders follow a rule Dusan wrote into his order form. Portrait photographs would bleed top and bottom, landscape photographs left and right, with margins running the other way. He asked us for the pros and cons before committing.
A square page is the reason the rule holds together. Neither orientation gets squeezed, so a landscape frame can stretch the full width with a white band above and below, while square images sit inside a thin keyline of paper. One spread sets the two approaches side by side: a lightning storm floods the left page to every edge, and on the right, power lines cross a gold field at night inside clean white margins.
For our finishing team, those bands were the exam. On the longhorn page, a steer peers through the rusted wheels of an old hay rake, framed by a white line barely wider than a pencil stroke, and it sits as evenly as a picture mount. If you want borders like these, keep them identical throughout and talk to us about tolerances before you lock the layout. Full bleed forgives small movements. Hairlines announce them.
Why 210mm is the best value square
A few hours after his first quote, Dusan asked whether we could go up to roughly 250mm square. He kept the size and the staples in the end, and thanked us for the “efficient communication”. For anyone weighing the same question: a square zine can be stapled or glued at up to 297 x 297mm, but 210 x 210mm is the top of its price bracket, and bigger sizes cost noticeably more.
Settling that before a single page was designed saved rework later. Mike rates 210mm square as an unusual size for a photo zine and a smart one, cheap to print and flexible to design. Staples keep the spine slim and the zine light enough to send across the Atlantic. Our explainer on stapled zine binding covers where staples stop and glue takes over.
The edit tightened too. After zine classes with photography educator Ted Forbes, Dusan cut the zine to 32 pages: a 250gsm silk cover, its outside face matt laminated, folded round a 28 page interior on 170gsm silk. That cover weight is the minimum we recommend for lamination, and the matt film tames glare on a deep blue Texan sky.
Splitting a full bleed spread in Canva Pro
Two pictures in Inner Space cross the centre fold, including an abstract of rippling reflections in red, gold, blue and black. Dusan called Canva Pro “kludgy” with spreads like these, and he had a point. Mike sent him the method we would use ourselves:
- Open a two page canvas, place the whole image across it and allow 3mm of bleed on each outer edge.
- Duplicate the image and crop the two copies into halves, so they still meet perfectly in the middle.
- Drop the left half onto an even page and the right half onto the next odd page, at the same x and y position it held on the spread.
Bleed was the second hurdle. Canva’s standard PDF exported only the visible page, so we asked for 3mm more on every edge, a 216 x 216mm file. Dusan found the download setting that kept it, sent the new PDF, and we confirmed it was ready to trim back to 210mm. If your software fights you too, this walkthrough on carrying backgrounds into the bleed area is a good place to start.
Night skies and a single test copy
Several of Dusan’s strongest frames happen after dark: lightning over a farm track, poles glowing above a field of stubble. Printed at home they looked right, but he knew a press and a different paper can change a shadow. He asked for a test copy before the full order, and we printed one at cost.
Silk suits an edit like this. Its smooth, light-catching surface holds density in the darks, so the storm keeps its texture, and it gives the daytime pictures, roadside tyre shops on bleached forecourts among them, a slick, saturated finish. Mike’s notes single out that mix of country and town on slick silk pages, Texas seen by someone still getting to know it.
Once the test copy reached Texas, Dusan’s reply was brief.
“Everything is as desired so no alterations needed.”
Dusan, approving his test copy
The full order went to press from the same file and shipped to Texas. On the thanks page, Dusan credits his teachers Ted Forbes and Alex Kilbee, with the “People of ExWhyZed” listed alongside them.
A cover masthead made to repeat
The cover answers a question most first issues ignore: what happens next? M-ZINE #1 runs vertically in deep red serif capitals down a white strip, above a circular M monogram, beside a brick chimney and a steel silo under a hard blue sky. Swap the photograph, change the number, and the series identity holds. Mike flagged it as repeatable styling, which means any future issue starts with its look already built.
He also reckons Inner Space would sit happily next to Peregrinos, another silk photo zine from our press. If there’s a place you’re seeing with fresh eyes, a stapled 210mm square on silk is a forgiving format to start in. Price your own square format with the instant quote tool, borders optional.
PaperbacksA5, 44 pages, perfect bound£246for 100
Product cataloguesA5, 28 pages, stapled£166for 100