Social Distancezine is a publication I created to encourage collaboration and creativity during the time of COVID-19. It serves as a small time capsule to document this unprecedented moment in history.

On March 19th, I went on my last unmasked distance walk with some friends. The official shelter in place orders for California came later that day. I realized that meant at least a month (or how about 5?) of not seeing anyone…Though I’m an introvert at heart, this was a little bit terrifying. Work had started to slow a bit, so I wracked my brain to think of something to do.

I wanted to make something collaborative that would give other artists to the opportunity to create and contribute. I ended up deciding that a zine was the thing! They’re collaborative, whimsical, design-y, and result in an actual physical object (something exceedingly rare in this time of zoom calls and Instagram and TikTok and general screen-related activities).

On March 30th, I put out a call for submissions on Instagram. I wasn’t sure if anyone would be interested but quickly got an answer. On March 31st, a lovely email graced my inbox. It was the first submission: two drawings, two poems, and a thoughtful message from Lariab Ahmad, an artist in Pakistan. I read the email, looked at her beautiful work, and promptly cried from happiness. The zine was happening! Best of all the first submission was from an artist I had never met before. The wonderful connective power of the internet will never cease to amaze me!

After that, the submissions steadily rolled in. In total, I received submissions from 42 artists with over 70 individual pieces. The work spanned 4 different countries and 5 states. I was overjoyed if not slightly overwhelmed.

Once the submission deadline passed, I moved on to the design phase, which was a process…After meticulously cataloging everything and creating a spreadsheet and folder structure (I love spreadsheets!), I decided to include at least one piece from each artist. This meant the zine would be at least 43 pages long (or 44 if you take into account proper book pagination). I began sifting through all the submissions to look for patterns or themes. I wanted to find connections between the different works of art, something to show how we’re all experiencing similar things even though we’re far apart. I was amazed by how many connections sprang up when I started looking for them.

After that, the spreads sort of started to design themselves. A very bright color palette of chartreuse and pink began to emerge. The words seemed to want to be set in Questa, a slab typeface somewhat reminiscent of a mono-spaced typewriter font that feels a little nostalgic but still modern. I chose Karla, a sleek, strong sans serif, for the captions.

With the design in place, I reached out to some trusted friends for proofreading, encouragement, and non-bloodshot eyeballs. The final “zine” ended up being 80 pages…more like a small book. I found a printer that specializes in zines, exported the files waaaaay too many times, uploaded them to the server, and waited.

Finally a big box arrived at my doorstep. I set it aside for the recommended three days, and then feasted my eyes on the giant pile of zines! I can’t describe how nice it is to hold something in your hands after staring at a digital version for so long! The transformation from digital to physical never gets old.

I packaged them up in eco-friendly mailers to send out a copy to each of the artists.

Thank you so very much to all the artists who submitted their wonderful work to this zine. It was a joy to create with you all!