Sunday, 23 November 2014

Intern Magazine Workshop

The Workshop

Getting into groups was relaxed as we just all went with the people we where sat with, which in hindsight might not be as helpful for my own development, but it can also be a good thing because you know each others strengths and know each other. 

Group:
Me
Daisy Conway
Melissa Gater
Melissa Hardcastle
Samantha Walker
Caitlin Walsh

We firstly began by mind mapping ideas, Daisy wrote them down, we suggested different ideas, and discussed them and there limitations or potential. I personally wanted to look into films, but the idea that we came up with I also have an interest in.

Concept
A magazine based on the idea of a 'stay-cation' 
Staying in the UK for a holiday over going abroad

The Benefits:
Easier to get to potentially, 
can take more luggage, or bikes etc
may be allowed to take your dogs, 
it can just be for the weekend
if you drive your almost self reliant and theres a lot less hassle
there are a vast amount of areas in the UK that not many people know about

Our Audience:
Young professionals, 20-30
people who have a bit more of disposable income
no commitments like children
not a lot of time, just have the weekend 
interested in travel, and culture

Me, Caitlin and Daisy worked upon the aesthetics of the magazine, 
we worked on the front covers, we based the lifespan of the magazine upon the idea of the four seasons, spring, summer, autumn, winter. 

We wanted to create a modern cover with the idea that the covers would maybe feature places that people would not believe where in UK, 

and so to do this I researched into places that are like this online

I began by looking on airbnb at places to stay in the UK that looked different, these featured different looking places to stay, however some of the group felt that they weren't impressive enough and so we looked at scenery instead, 

I found an article on buzz feed which allowed us to do this...

http://www.buzzfeed.com/ailbhemalone/putting-the-great-in-great-britain#xkxskr

The images are really what we where looking for, 

These where some of my initial ideas: 







Final Covers,
The type was now uppercase, and the line separated its from the title, and the issue number is down at the bottom. 



Spring Cover



Summer Cover




I also created an idea for a spread that would be in the magazine, this one would be perhaps int he winter edition. The images would really speak for some of the places





Whilst we where doing this (Daisy had created the Winter cover and Caitlin the Autumn) 

Sam and Melissa worked on the crowd funding idea, Sam had the most ideas for this, as she had a little bit of an idea about the site kick-starter  which is for crowd funding, which is where you advertise your idea in order to gain pledges of money from the audience, so that you can fund your business. 


They thought about the resins for people to pledge and what the magazine could give them back, they thought of relevant trips that could be given for each UK country, i.e. Whisky tasting in Scotland, I thought it was a little bit stereotypical but I think that many people would enjoy this, I also thought that instead of giving them trips maybe give them a gift set of miniature things from the places but again this has the same problem, Sam also thought of postcards, which I thought was a good idea, but it never got any further, the postcards could be made into collectibles, of the best place in each issue and something to accompany that. 

Anyway as I didn't know what crowd funding of Kickstarter was I didn't have much of an input into the video we could create, as it is not one of my strong points, however the idea that Caitlin proposed was very appropriate, the ad would show the front cover of the magazine and then the magazine would go off screen and you would be in the actual location, Caitlin drew the story board up quickly. 

Presentation, 

As we had tried to get the covers all the same and Caitilin had designed the way the title and tagline would look, we sent her our covers so that she could check they where similar, on reflection she should of sent them to me or Daisy to sort out, and save them as correct files, as she was finishing of the storyboard, or I felt that someone else in the group who'd not had much input to the group should of offered to sort out the presentation and we could of all sent them the stuff.

When it came to the Presentation we used Caitlins laptop to plug into the presentation screen, I offered to do this as I do it at home, the memory stick was plugged into the macbook and the cable wouldn't go in next to it and so I ejected the memory stick, not knowing that she was running the pdfs of the memory stick, which I don't think is the best practice, however as she'd been the one under pressure to sort it, but again all that needed to be done was it to be dragged from the stick to the desktop.

Because of this when we presented only two of the covers showed up, which was disappointing because we wanted to show of the seasons. 

Sam had also had the idea that everything in the magazine i.e. sponsors advertisers and the production of the magazine would be completely UK based and this was a really good idea as its a niche and it gives the magazine authenticity and is appealing to the market.
I really liked this idea. 

We all took turns in speaking about different elements and tried to cover the areas Alec had asked us to cover. 

I think we did this pretty well

The concept was well received, and had not been thought of before, the only improvements, where that 
1. We need the presentation to have everything on it.
2. That the covers really need to appeal to the audience, if they look too sophisticated then people will think its too expensive

I felt that this was a valid point but I think that we didn't want to go to near to the 'cheap' aesthetic because it was about being sophisticated and different to what you expect. 








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