Work Placement

As part of the course we are required to find a work placement for one month towards the end of the second year. I am really hoping to find a placement in Germany, and if possible in Berlin. I've been fascinated with the city since the first time I visited in 2004 and I have been back four times since seeing a lot of it and making friends along the way. I have a good grasp of German and I am taking lessons via the university so I can continually improve. There are several English language magazines in Berlin and I think it would be a really good experience to work on one of them for a month. Finding somewhere to stay for a shot while should not be a problem and defiantly worth it.

News and Magazine production – Week four

Sadly I was unable to acquire a copy of DRAINOR magazine as it appears to no longer be in production. Despite this, it seems to have been a cult hit among the Urbex community online even though I can only find two issues of it, both of which are sold out. This week’s session was very productive and I received some positive feedback for my work which was nice! Some points to expand on the piece were offered.

These include working towards understand the psychology behind why people enjoy a sometimes dangerous and always mysterious pastime.

What are the numbers involved? How many active Infiltrators are out there?

The motivation

I also decided to expand from just photography and try and find some other media that was related to Urbex. I remember a great music video from one of my favourite bands that might in fact be considered as such.

Faith No More – Ashes to Ashes http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6oKhMPemjY In the video the shots are very reminiscent of the type of photography seen in Urban Exploration.

For next week I plan to have to have my article ready for submission and editing.

(Updates as and when)

News and Magazine production – Week three

For me the third week of the production process has been mainly taken up with research. I decided to look on the internet for other magazines that are of a similar nature to the one that we are attempting to produce. Though I was unable to find anything identical to our pitch (which is actually a good thing) I found several web based magazines that are on the subject of urban exploration. I’ve decided to read through and study them to give myself some ideas.

URBEX – Urbex seems to have only been produced twice and had a six month interval between issues. I quite enjoyed the first person perspective writing and it is something I had already planned to use in my own feature piece. The magazine is understandably image led, I felt the text was printed in too small of a font which made it difficult to read.

http://www.explonation.com/magazines/book/3-urbex-mag-2/1-urbex-mag

DRAINOR – This magazine is a UK based Urbex production. Unfortunately only a very small preview was available to view so I am unable to comment on the strength of their writing, however the producers of the magazine have used a lot colour and bold text on the cover and first few pages which is very attention grabbing, I may purchase a copy and look further into it.

http://www.drainormagazine.com/preview.html

JINX – Probably the best one I have read, they have collated a lot of stories from all over the word including some really good work in a “Chernobyl Journal”

“Jinx is the magazine of Worldwide Urban Adventure. Jinx publishes its reports on urban exploration and international adventure here, along with dossiers of its Friends and Enemies. The magazine has been published, irregularly, since 1997. It has been online-only since 2001.” From the Jinxmagazine site.

This is a really great site, and I am going to continue looking into it further.

http://www.jinxmagazine.com

On Tuesday, which was the third class session of this project we presented our ideas and “mood boards” Our group was almost complete with only one member missing which was quite a good turnout. Our next task is to have draft features completed by next Tuesday. I am confident I can get my completed; I also have to get at least one interview and I will email a site that I have followed for sometime now, which I believe to be one of the best Urbex sites and defiantly worth checking out.

www.zenfolio.com/anotherstateofmind

News and Magazine production - Week Two

The second week of the magazine production project was far more intense than the first. Planning the magazine took up most of the time with Art Direction. It was decided that each member of the group would construct a “Mood Board” which is a poster design that consists of images, text, and samples of objects in a composition of the choice of the mood board creator the idea behind it being, to develop the design concepts and to communicate to other members of the team, and/or a board of directors or financers. It is important to consider when constructing mood boards is other similar publications that are in your area and what they have in common with your own, and importantly will your advertisers allow you to break conventions? The answer is usually ‘no’.

The next thing to decide on is the size and quality of the paper used. “A sizes” are the cheapest, but it is really all dependant on your budget and how you have split it up. Once paper size has been decided on a grid system using vertical lines, developed along the requirements of the advertisers is useful to get set your layout up. The more columns you have the more flexibility you will have but, remember to leave space to accommodate news as well as a double page spread(s). Typography is also important, the fewer typefaces the better and “Serif” fonts are easier to read over a long period of time. http://www.fontpark.net/ provides free fonts for commercial and personal use.

Colour. Ideally limiting the pallet you are working with will make the job easier and cheaper to print. CMYK (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, Key). Images need to be either a minimum of 300dpi or in a vector format. It is advisable to remember that art departments prefer unedited “Raw” Images.

The cover of the magazine is the point of contact with the consumer and therefore the masthead is VERY important, as is the cover image. Remember to leave space for barcode and price information.

News and Magazine production - Week One

The first week of the magazine production began with forming a group. The group, which initially was made up of four people later expanded to eight. We decided to take on the idea of “Alternate living” as a theme for our magazine and work towards it, each group member would be assigned to contribute one main feature which was to be around 800 words, with pictures and to cover a double page spread in the magazine. Though there were no upper limits on the amount of pages it was suggested that a magazine of around 16-20 pages would be sufficient and easily achievable. The group began to look into which features each member would individually contribute. Music, photography, food, lifestyle, sports were obvious choices however we did find that filling the magazine with features was harder in practice than it was during the initial planning stage.