Zine Making: Communicating with Graphics

This is a hands-on workshop where we’ll use drawing, comics, and zine-style layouts to explore how to express complex ideas in simple, creative ways. No experience necessary.

There is no extensive prep-work needed. Please come with paper and things to draw with. Sketch pens, colour pencils, and crayons work great. Please also think back to the last comic you read, and to your favourite comic (if you have one).

No art skills or design background needed — just a pencil, some paper, and something you care about.

Whether your research involves lab work, archival digging, or everyday experiences, we’ll help you sketch out a mini-zine page (or two) that communicates what it’s about — or why it matters. Along the way, we’ll explore how words and images work together — not just to simplify ideas, but to express their depth and nuance differently.

What we’ll do

• Learn the basics of what makes comics and zines work
• Look at examples of comics that do research (yes, that’s a thing!)
• Try short, playful drawing exercises to loosen up
• Break big ideas down into visual scenes and simple steps
• Make at least one zine page based on something you're working on or curious about
• Share your work (if you want)

What you’ll learn

• How to use simple drawings and layouts to explain an idea or tell a story
• How comics and zines work — what makes them clear, fun, or powerful
• How to combine words and images to express something that’s hard to say with just one or the other
• How to break big or complex ideas into smaller visual moments
• How to explore research questions creatively — through storytelling, not just explanation
• How to experiment without worrying about being “good” at art
• How to give and get friendly feedback that helps you see your work in a new way
• How to make a zine page from scratch

About the use of comics in academia: Issue 1: Using comics in academia - Meanwhile, Back in the Library...Comics - LibGuides at Sheffield Hallam University

A student about her PhD journey Thesis notebooks – Tiphaine Riviere - comics are in French but the visuals communicate well.

Akesson, B., & Oba, O. (2017). Beyond Words: Comics in the Social Work Classroom. Journal of Social Work Education, 53(4), 595-606.

Complete a one or two page comic as a part of this exercise.