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Showing posts from March, 2019

MAGAZINE PRODUCTION WEEK 5 - FRONT COVER SECOND DRAFT

So far you've Analysed Proposed Pitched Designed and you're now in a position where you have A First Draft Front Cover A First Draft Article Time to swing back to working on your FRONT COVER - there's no avoiding the fact that you need INDESIGN TIME - the thought that you'll get the design aspects of your magazine ready in a week is for the birds - not gonna happen. You're only spending about five or six hours a week in here and you'll need it to improve your skills. Well aware that when left to your own devices you'll mainly muck around on your own devices I want this creative process to unfold like this. 1. Open up a new blogpost. Call it 'Print Production Week 5 - Front Cover Second Draft' 2. Open up your First Draft of your front cover in Indesign, and open up your production diary from the week you created it (Week 1). Are you still going to stick with your original draft layout or are you going to change it? If you want

MAGAZINE PRODUCTION WEEK 4 - ARTICLE FLATPLAN

Okay, on your magazine production work you should have - Done a DRAFT LAYOUT and FIRST GO of your FRONT COVER - PITCHED the article you're going to write. - WRITTEN a FIRST DRAFT of that article & sent it me. - Done a DRAFT LAYOUT for your ARTICLE While you wait for me to edit your article and send it back to you, it'd be a good time for you to continue experimenting with Indesign towards making a FIRST ATTEMPT at laying your article out on the page. Complete this part in the following way. 1. Open up a new blogpost. Call it 'ARTICLE FLAT PLAN' 2. Paste in your DRAFT LAYOUT and just add the sentence. 'This is the draft layout I will be working towards'. 3. Using Indesign or Photoshop, try putting the text from your FIRST DRAFT together with pictures to compose your magazine pages. You'll need your draft layout open so you know where things should go - your first attempt should be roughly to your layout. You should be averaging about 500-8

MAGAZINE PRODUCTION WEEK 3 - Writing Your First Draft

So, you've proposed a magazine, had a first go at designing a front cover, have pitched a suitable article for your magazine giving yourself a word-count and deadline . . . . it's now time to do the most important part of being a writer/journalist - get your bum in the chair and WRITE. Complete this week's post in the following way.  1. Open up a new Blogpost. Call it 'PRINT MEDIA PRODUCTION WEEK 3: WRITING MY FIRST DRAFT. 2. Write your article in MSWord according to your pitch. Aim for your full exact wordcount, although 10% above or below that wordcount is acceptable. Give it a headline, and get your byline in there too. A few pointers at this early stage . . ..  READ similar articles, they'll give you guidance as to the kind of tone to strike.  READ your own article before sending it to me. Does it flow? Does it have rhythm or is it unwieldly and stilted? Are you getting out of breath reading anything - if so, you need to break that pa

MAGAZINE PRODUCTION WEEK 2 - PITCHING YOUR ARTICLE

You've finished your proposal, as well as a first go at your front cover as well as a diary-entry. It's now time to also think about the ARTICLE you're going to write for your magazine. Nobody for any mag or newspaper simply writes things without first checking that someone is going to run it. The way writers do this is by writing an email to their editor where they PITCH an article for consideration that they want to write. It's a vital part of pre-production for a magazine (often pitches are discussed at editorial meetings - remember the preproduction stage for print media products?) so it's something that I feel is essential for you to do also. I want you to pitch the article you're going to write and design for your proposed magazine. You'll do this as follows. 1. OPEN UP A NEW BLOGPOST. Call it 'PRINT MEDIA PRODUCTION: WEEK 2' 2. Add the heading 'THE PITCH'. Then using these headings tell me the following . . . .  WHAT I WANT