Arabesque zine blog

Arabesque will debut at the Canzine Zine Fair in Toronto, ON Canada this November 1st held at the Gladstone Hotel!  The event will last from 1pm to 7pm.  For $5 you get a free copy of Broken Pencil magazine and admission into the fair which will feature over 150 exhibitors from all over Canada and other exciting events.  Contributors Kim Hoang and saicoink will be exhibiting and selling their own work as well as copies of Arabesque.  Please stop by their table if you find yourself in Toronto this weekend.

Sorry for the lack of updates!  After receiving the B&W insides for the zine on Friday last week, and I have been hard at work putting together the books so haven't had any time to post on the blog.

All copies have been collated, bound, and cut by hand. It is 116 pages full of really wonderful articles, illustrations, and photos. It feels really great to hold the finished product in my hands. After over a year of planning it is amazing that we managed to complete the actual first issue of Arabesque!

Hope that everyone will enjoy the book when they receive it. Thank you for your support! Please feel free to write your comments or thoughts about the zine on the blog when you get your book in the mail.

Lots of exciting news today!

Received the free extra bonus cards that will be included with each copy of the zine in the mail today. They are printed on a Risograph which specializes in printing one colour using vegetable-based ink instead of toner like a photocopier.  Spent the good part of the evening folding and cutting the cards. There are two designs. Which one you get will be a surprise. :-)

Also picked up all of the colour printouts and the cover today and spent a good hour or two prepping the pages for binding. Here is a teaser of the little pull out spread. I still need to cut and fold this one! It will take quite a while.

Checked the final proof for the B&W pages and everything looked great. Hopefully they will be able to print everything by tomorrow. *crosses fingers* >_<

Today I was able to check the proofs for all the colour pages and the cover. Every thing looks gorgeous! Here is a small photo of the cover. It is printed on the Speckletone series from French Paper (http://www.frenchpaper.com).

I will be picking up the colour pages tomorrow morning. Going to stop by the B&W printers as well to take a look at the second proof, and hopefully we'll have the pages by Friday (or if things go wrong as they have been for the last few days- Monday)!

I can't wait to put this all together finally!!

This is saicoink here. I am in charge of the zine's printing and production. I decided to keep a log of the zine's printing progress as some people have been asking about when the zine will ship. We are a week behind schedule as the zine was supposed to printed and bound last week and sent out this week, but there were some problems with the printing of the cover and the layout took much longer than expected.

Also went to the colour printers today hoping to get a proof of the cover and colour pages printed out but their network was down! I left the paper and files in their hands and hopefully things will be running at their shop by Wednesday so I can come by and approve everything for printing. If not I'm going to have to find some place else to print.

I'll be posting almost daily this week while we are in the midst of wrapping up production. After the zine is printed and copies sent out this blog will be used to feature posts from contributors featuring content that is relevant to the zine and otome aesthetic but isn't substantial enough to make it to the print version. Please bookmark this blog and look forward to our posts here!

Thanks for your support, and feel free to write any comments and thoughts on the blog as you like.

Arabesque is an aesthetic zine aimed at all things beautiful and refined. Inspired by the Japanese concept of otome, or maiden, it recalls the tiny loves, dreams and fancies that comfort and console the mind. Imagine: a good cup of tea at a cafe you chanced on a rainy day, the delicacy of light playing on an embroidered silk handkerchief, a whisper of music passing through an open window; you walk through the forest, breathe in the crisp and cool autumn air- lost in the wonder of every day life.

Find out how to purchase a copy at the Arabesque website.