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 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)

· How to use simple drawings and layouts to explain an idea or tell a storyHow 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

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