Call for Submissions: Self Care for Artists & Designers Zine

The OCAD U Zine Collective will be producing a zine this term about self care for artists and designers. Self care can be defined as any intentional act you take to care for your physical, mental and emotional health. We are interested in all kinds of interpretations of this topic, especially as they relate to the experiences of artists and designers.

We will accept images, writing, comics, poems and more from a serious/semi-serious/humorous/critical/any perspective.

Possible content could include:

• strategies for how to take care of yourself
• exercises for artists to help our bodies survive long work sessions
• workbook content: colouring pages, relaxing projects, connect-the-dots
• methods for coping with the specific pressures and anxieties creative people experience, such as deadlines, competition, financial struggles, etc.
• suggestions for how to maintain a healthy work/life balance or develop good routines (in creating or just living)
• recipes for healthy or comforting food to eat when you're stressed
• reviews of resources (books, websites, movies, music, podcasts, etc) that you've found to be helpful in staying healthy or reducing stress
• stories of successes or failures in practicing self care
• frustrations or challenges with practicing self care

Submission Guidelines:
Each page of the zine will be 8.5 inches x 11 inches in size. Please format your submission to fit this size. Each page of your submission should be submitted as a separate file. Please leave at least a 1/2 inch border on every page, meaning images and text should be centered on the page and no larger than 7.5" x 10". Please provide us with high quality files, with at least 300dpi/ppi resolution.

The zine will be printed in two colours on the risograph. This means that each colour will need to be printed separately, one after the other with time to dry in between. If you would like to use both colours in your submissions, you can do one of the following: 1) submit each page as a Photoshop file, with each colour on a separate layer (max. two colours/layers). 2) Submit each colour as a separate PDF file. All of your files should be submitted in grayscale. Please title your files/layers as "lighter colour" and "darker colour" so that we know how you would like the contrast of the image to work.

Feel free to email us with any questions you may have about formatting your submission(s) before the deadline.

Deadline: February 19th, 2016.

Send submissions to ocadzinelibrary@gmail.com