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Monday, 27 February 2012
Evaluation
I knew when I first started this project, it wouldn't be easy, however I totally underestimated how hard it would actually be! Saying that though, that in no way implies that I didn't enjoy every minute of the experience. There is nothing easy about setting up your own business, and there's so many more elements of work involved that you don't even realize exist until you actually get to it!
Throughout the project, despite my experience in the graphic design and publishing world, it was still a massive shock to the system the amount of work that had to be done and the amount of responsibility that I had over the whole process. I can safely say that through this experience I've learnt so much about the graphic design and publishing industry.
Plymouth Student, for example, has taught me the way deadlines work in the industry, how to network, how to negotiate with people, how to correctly format layouts for print, how to organize people, how to maintain professional relationships and so much more. It was also a great experience to work with a team of people, and was interesting to see how the dynamics changed with friendship being involved.
Despite all this however, I would do a fair bit differently, but I think it all takes time to learn from mistakes, especially with the start up of a brand new business with no experience in doing so. I would be more organized with my time so I could more productively use my time to get certain things done. I'd also try and organize so someone else would be in control of the distribution, since through the decisions and mistakes made, it's definitely a whole job for someone else without any other responsibilities.
Obviously, the project is currently live, so I will always be facing challenges as PS continues into the future. Already, there has been some changes made to help the running of the business more smooth and for me to take more of a role of editor and director, rather than overseeing and doing everything. I'm excited as PS develops and expands, and am very grateful for the opportunity I've been given to allow this dream of a publication to become a reality.
Throughout the project, despite my experience in the graphic design and publishing world, it was still a massive shock to the system the amount of work that had to be done and the amount of responsibility that I had over the whole process. I can safely say that through this experience I've learnt so much about the graphic design and publishing industry.
Plymouth Student, for example, has taught me the way deadlines work in the industry, how to network, how to negotiate with people, how to correctly format layouts for print, how to organize people, how to maintain professional relationships and so much more. It was also a great experience to work with a team of people, and was interesting to see how the dynamics changed with friendship being involved.
Despite all this however, I would do a fair bit differently, but I think it all takes time to learn from mistakes, especially with the start up of a brand new business with no experience in doing so. I would be more organized with my time so I could more productively use my time to get certain things done. I'd also try and organize so someone else would be in control of the distribution, since through the decisions and mistakes made, it's definitely a whole job for someone else without any other responsibilities.
Obviously, the project is currently live, so I will always be facing challenges as PS continues into the future. Already, there has been some changes made to help the running of the business more smooth and for me to take more of a role of editor and director, rather than overseeing and doing everything. I'm excited as PS develops and expands, and am very grateful for the opportunity I've been given to allow this dream of a publication to become a reality.
Printing
So the day came that everything had been sent to the printing press in Weymouth, Newsquest, and since it was the first issue, my Dad suggested that we road trip up there to watch the first few bundles come hot off the press. Everyone was very excited and it was an experience we were all looking forward to, since I was the only person out of the whole team that had witnessed a printing press as large as Newsquest's before.
Below are some of the pictures taken during our trip, and our happy little faces when we picked up our first copy!
Below are some of the pictures taken during our trip, and our happy little faces when we picked up our first copy!
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| Very first copy being printed |
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| Test copies (to make sure the colour is right), ready for recycling |
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| Happy team photo! |
Other Responsibilities
As team leader and head of the business, I had a lot of other responsibilities that the other members of the team didn't have. There were many aspects of the business that needed overseeing that stretched further than just the design work that was submitted. Below are a list of the other responsibilities I had during the project.
Advertising:
Since the whole project, including the printing and any money needed for extra costs (such as t-shirts for distributors or box dispensers), I had to organize a way in which to get people to advertise in the magazine for a small fee. I organized a small publishing company called Cornerstone Vision to help with the advertising, due to the fact their magazines are fairly well established in the city and their client base was rather large - which was very useful! I even got involved in selling advertising myself, ringing up various businesses and using social networking to get a sale. It was a really interesting experience since I normally hate using phones, so it definitely helped me get over that fear.
Admin:
To maintain an organized environment to create the magazine in, I had to do a lot of admin work to make sure that everything ran smoothly. This meant keeping on top of emails, organizing files, making sure everyone who was to attend the meetings did so and knew all the relevant information, and other smaller jobs that if I didn't do them, they wouldn't get done!
Finance:
Myself and Jess opened up a partner business bank account, so when it came to paying print bills or receiving money from clients for adverts, we had a place to put it all, rather than using a separate company. This involved lots of trips to the bank, at the beginning, our application struggled to get processed, as well as to pay in checks we'd received etc.
Distribution:
You can have the greatest magazine in the world, with the best content and the most beautiful design, but without people to read it, it's worth nothing. With help from my Dad, who's got experience in this side of publishing, we organized three different ways to get our free magazine to the hands of students. This was by producing 20,000 magazines, and having 5,000 delivered through doors (paid for, through the same company who helped with advertising, Cornerstone Vision), 5,000 in stockists (ie, shops and businesses) and the remaining 10,000 being handed out by volunteers and at various Fresher's events. Distribution is a whole job in itself, and so I definitely needed the help to keep this from going completely wrong, and it's definitely where improvement could be used most in the future.
Overseeing EVERYTHING!:
As I was responsible for everything running smoothly with this project, I had to maintain control over every aspect, so to make sure no problems arose. I had to maintain contact with every member of the team, as well as any contributors that wanted to get involved. This took up a lot of time to keep juggling everyone's responsibilities as well as my own, listed above. It even boiled down to the small details of production, such as making sure everything was proof read before being sent to print and double checking that every picture in the layout was high resolution and CMYK.
Advertising:
Since the whole project, including the printing and any money needed for extra costs (such as t-shirts for distributors or box dispensers), I had to organize a way in which to get people to advertise in the magazine for a small fee. I organized a small publishing company called Cornerstone Vision to help with the advertising, due to the fact their magazines are fairly well established in the city and their client base was rather large - which was very useful! I even got involved in selling advertising myself, ringing up various businesses and using social networking to get a sale. It was a really interesting experience since I normally hate using phones, so it definitely helped me get over that fear.
Admin:
To maintain an organized environment to create the magazine in, I had to do a lot of admin work to make sure that everything ran smoothly. This meant keeping on top of emails, organizing files, making sure everyone who was to attend the meetings did so and knew all the relevant information, and other smaller jobs that if I didn't do them, they wouldn't get done!
Finance:
Myself and Jess opened up a partner business bank account, so when it came to paying print bills or receiving money from clients for adverts, we had a place to put it all, rather than using a separate company. This involved lots of trips to the bank, at the beginning, our application struggled to get processed, as well as to pay in checks we'd received etc.
Distribution:
You can have the greatest magazine in the world, with the best content and the most beautiful design, but without people to read it, it's worth nothing. With help from my Dad, who's got experience in this side of publishing, we organized three different ways to get our free magazine to the hands of students. This was by producing 20,000 magazines, and having 5,000 delivered through doors (paid for, through the same company who helped with advertising, Cornerstone Vision), 5,000 in stockists (ie, shops and businesses) and the remaining 10,000 being handed out by volunteers and at various Fresher's events. Distribution is a whole job in itself, and so I definitely needed the help to keep this from going completely wrong, and it's definitely where improvement could be used most in the future.
Overseeing EVERYTHING!:
As I was responsible for everything running smoothly with this project, I had to maintain control over every aspect, so to make sure no problems arose. I had to maintain contact with every member of the team, as well as any contributors that wanted to get involved. This took up a lot of time to keep juggling everyone's responsibilities as well as my own, listed above. It even boiled down to the small details of production, such as making sure everything was proof read before being sent to print and double checking that every picture in the layout was high resolution and CMYK.
Thursday, 23 February 2012
Website/Social Networking
Something I really wanted to sort out was creating an online presence for the magazine. I began with the basic social networking profiles, creating a profile on Twitter and a page on Facebook. These worked fairly well and generated some interest with likes coming in on Facebook and people sharing the tweets from the Twitter. After a while however, we found the interest slumping so Simon R suggested another tactic. We then changed from a 'page' on Facebook to a profile and began adding people. This seemed to work a lot better since a lot of people tend to accept friend requests from random companies based in their city. I know I do it personally, just to keep updated.
Below are screenshots of all online profiles (with click through links):
Below are screenshots of all online profiles (with click through links):
These are all fairly successful ways in which to generate online interest and keep people up to date with what's going on with the magazine, quickly and easily. However, we all agreed that to feel a lot more established as a business and as a brand, a website would be a good way to go.
Simon Howe offered to help create a website for the magazine, due to his interest in web design. Currently, the layout and website is very simple, but with hopes to expand in the future as opportunities allow so and myself and Simon H become more confident in our abilities to create and code a website.
Below are screen shots of the website, and various stages of its development:
This was the simple page created when the domain had been bought, but no website layout has been coded.
This was an initial layout created.
A small excerpt of coding.
The final website, found here.
Style Guide
With my experience as a graphic designer, it was obviously one of my main interests when it came to the production of the magazine. With so many graphic designers on the team, it was a good idea to develop a proper style guide so that everyone could go away and work on their own layouts, without straying too far from the overall design we'd established through common interest.
Mini Style Guide
Body text: Font size 9pt with 13pt leading.
(The leading can be changed to anything down to 10.5 but that’s only if necessary really!)
Body Fonts: Times New Roman (Italic), American Typewriter and Prestige Elite Std
(The reason for all these fonts is so there’s flexibility if you need to compress word counts)
Header fonts: Bebas Neue, Didot, Times New Roman etc
Any enquiries towards design and layout, get in touch with Naomi, Stuart etc!
This was to help everyone on the team roughly maintain their style, however as the brand and the magazine develops further, I hope to expand this style guide into a structured, comprehensive booklet.
Layout Design
My favourite job, of course, was laying out the magazine pages. I've been working on magazine layout design for a few years at my part time job as a graphic designer at a local publishing house. With help from my Dad to give me pointers on making sure all text was formatted correctly, how the layouts would work when it came to sending the print PDF's to the printers, etc, I was able to correctly lay out a 24 page magazine, with various contributions from members of the team (ie. Jess and her fashion pages).
I found it challenging sometimes and other times simple and easy. There is always a challenge of fitting a certain amount of text into a layout, making it fit, making it legible as well as aesthetically pleasing. I don't think many people realise how complicated layout design can get when playing with all the elements.
Below are screen shots from inDesign of the layout of the first issue:
I found it challenging sometimes and other times simple and easy. There is always a challenge of fitting a certain amount of text into a layout, making it fit, making it legible as well as aesthetically pleasing. I don't think many people realise how complicated layout design can get when playing with all the elements.
Below are screen shots from inDesign of the layout of the first issue:
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