Weekly Newsletter #66: Thank You For Healing With Us

By: burgundy bug

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“Let’s Heal” illustration from “The Burgundy Zine #14: Healing“

Source: The Burgundy Zine

Well, bug buddies. It’s 4:00 AM, I’ve just finished going through my emails, and I’m ’bout to ugly cry out here because YOU’RE ALL SO KIND!! AHHHH.

My mushy-gushy softness aside, we extend our love and appreciation to our entire community for, once again, coming together and helping us make another issue of our digital magazine possible.

In addition to our regularly scheduled programming, we’d also take to take a moment to discuss a few new features in this issue of our digital magazine a bit more in-depth.

Weekly Recap

We began this week with “The Gardener” poem last Sunday.

On Tuesday, we tuned-in to interviews with the North Carolina pop-rock band High Shores and London-based indie-pop singer Natalie Shay.

On Wednesday, we held a “behind the zines” discussion on vulnerability. Then, Lori Brown gave us a solution to the toilet paper shortages currently happening due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

On Thursday, Emily shared her impassioned and deeply personal letter to Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (D-VT).

On Friday, we directed our Artist Spotlight towards Teri Anderson and her motivational textiles.

Last – but most certainly not least – we released “The Burgundy Zine #14: Healing.” This 164-page issue of our digital magazine features content from 75 contributors on healing, medical research, healthcare statistics, personal wellness, as well as art, poetry, and a slew of musicians you should tune-in to.

Now Let’s Go Behind the Zines

First and foremost, THANK YOU. I know we’ve said it a thousand times, and we’ll say it a thousand more times over. Hell, we’ll shout it from the rooftops. THANK YOU!

From our contributors to our readers, we are blown away by your efforts and dedication to our growing community.

A gif of a caterpillar with hearts above its head

Source: GIPHY

Those of you bug buddies who’ve been fluttering alongside us for a while may notice a few changes to the overall format of the zine, which we’d like to explore now.

Design and Layout Changes

After doing a few print runs of previous issues of The Burgundy Zine, we decided to make a few subtle changes to the design and layout of the zine.

Let’s face it – an 18-pt font may have been nice for viewing the zine online, but it’s certainly not practical for printing. Even at 12-pt, the font’s still a little big but we wanted to keep it reader-friendly for digital and print formats.

The headers above each article have been reduced in size, and with the extra space, we decided to keep the author’s name at the top of each article, rather than only including it on the first page of their content.

We’ve also decided to change up how the cover images for articles are displayed to really make the photos throughout the zine POP.

For the sake of space and readability, we’ve opted for a more simple/minimalistic layout for the credits and directory in “The Burgundy Zine #14.”

In the same vein, we’ve simplified how “Artist Spotlights” are displayed. Rather than stacking a bunch of artwork by an artist on one page, we wanted to dedicate more space to their work so it can speak for itself.

Next, we’d been talking about including more “graphic-driven” articles in our issues for a few months now, and we took this bi-monthly format as the opportunity to do just that.

In order to fit two months’ worth of content into one magazine (and keep it under 200 pages), we “compressed” some articles or opted to include an infographic from the creator along with a few paragraphs from the full-length article, which is available on our blog.

Our interviews are more graphic driven throughout this issue, as well. We’ve done graphic-driven interviews throughout the music section of our zine since issue #9, so we’ve decided to apply the same technique for the rest of our interviews.

Not only does this save space, but it makes for some pretty attention-grabbing eye candy. 😉

More Artwork

We’re always eager to include artists throughout our zine, but we’ve also made an effort to include more in-house artwork, as well.

In addition to being an editor, a writer, a graphic designer, a communications manager, a webmaster, and a social media manager, I love to draw.

Outside of the zine, I’ve been trying to redefine my art style for quite some time, especially in terms of digital art… And now that I’m working from home full-time, I’ve had the chance to do that!

Mascots

If you know me outside of my work here on The Burgundy Zine, you’re probably familiar with my love for drawing and creating characters.

I have a group of characters I’ve been using throughout my comics for years, so I thought it would be a fun idea to incorporate a character specifically for this zine: the blue girl.

She doesn’t have a name or a story, per se, but she’s on the cover and incorporated throughout the zine. It was so much fun to have a character to theme around the zine and I’ll definitely continue to do this in the future.

The Cover

We love to do illustrated covers any chance we get. For this issue, I wanted the cover to evoke a sense of intrigue, mysticism, and healing. There’s light that radiates from “the blue girl,” who’s floating above a lake and in front of an eye that’s peering through the mountains.

In front of her are two green hands pointing to the words “HEALING” and surrounded by a few lines from “The Gardener” poem.

You can interpret the cover however you’d like. Perhaps the hands are a reference to a spiritual figure, perhaps the eyes are a reference to awakening or awareness. Perhaps the blue girl represents rebirth or growth. Perhaps the mushrooms indirectly represent connectedness or abundance, due to their properties in nature (mycelia being the “worldwide web” that connects plant life and the fact that mushrooms are everywhere). Perhaps the mountains represent how we perceive different challenges in life and the hills reflect the reality of those challenges (making “mountains out of molehills”).

Or maybe it’s just a trippy cover. Take it however you see fit.

Going Forward

(Insert audible exhale of relief here). Now that “The Burgundy Zine #14” is out and complete, we can take this chance to breathe until it’s time to start working on our next issue.

We already have contributors lined up for The Burgundy Zine #15 and are eager to incorporate more. Information about contributing to the next issue of our digital magazine will be available on our blog in early April.

In the meantime, go give “The Burgundy Zine #14: Healing” a read, if you haven’t already!

And if you’re looking for a rockin’ way to pass your Sunday afternoon, we highly recommend looking into “Doomed Fest,” an online music festival taking place at 12:00 PM (EST) today.

You can learn more about Doomed Fest and how to reserve your ticket here.

With love,
burgundy bug >:^)

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