A MAD Major Project

–A MAD MAJOR

PROJECT–

A MAD MAJOR PROJECT–THE MAKING OF A COLLABORATIVE PUBLICATION FROM START TO FINISH–

MARTINA DAHL2010

–INTRODUCTION 7–MANAGING & DESIGNING 11–INVESTIGATING OUR THEME 21–OUR COLLABORATION 29–BRINGING IT ALL TOGETHER 37–REFLECTION 45–

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–INTRODUCTION–MANAGING & DESIGNING–INVESTIGATING OUR THEME–OUR COLLABORATION–BRINGING IT ALL TOGETHER–REFLECTION–

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Ana, Daisy and I met each other on this course, FdA Design for Graphic Communication. The first time we worked as a team was during a group project in our second year. Our group functioned well and we had a fun time together. The outcome was successful which left us with the feeling that we had a strong team. It was during that project the idea of making a collaborative publication was born.

After this we had more individual projects but even so we kept a close working relationship; always discussing each others projects and giving each other advise or feedback. Towards the end of the second year we came up with our group name, MAD, which is short for Martina, Ana and Daisy.

At the beginning of our third year we started a mutual blog. The purpose of the blog was to have a shared visual diary where we could gather and show each other things that inspire us. We have kept the blog going and it has strengthen our feeling of being a group. We are all proud of being part of MAD.

THE MAD BEGINNING

Daisy screeprinted flyers we had designed to hand out at our presentation.

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OUR IDEA

Our magazine idea was a year old by the time we finally sat down to sketch our ideas down for the PPD presentation. This presentation was like a real life pitch were we had to sell the idea and convince our teachers that it would be a great final major project. Needles to say we were excited to do this at last and we sold our idea to them.

THEMEAlready in our second year, after the idea was born, we decided after advise from Darren that we should have a theme for our publication. We came up with some ideas and the one that we all liked was change. There was a lot of potential in this theme, both for ourselves in terms of the design but also for the contributors when producing work for us. The theme of change also reflects our collaborative way of working.

NAMEOne of the hardest things was to come up with a name for the publication. We decided that each one of us had to write down at least five name suggestions. Our final name, Oh!, came from the song title Oh! You pretty little things, by Bowie, something that came up when I googled ‘changes’. We selected it for a trial period but when we only got positive reactions we decided it was a real winner.

PURPOSE & FOCUS POINTSThe making of the presentation, a project in its own, was good for us in terms of refining our brief. We could now list our goal and purpose of the magazine as well as our focus points, these will be my main content for this report.

KEY POINTS FROM THE PRESENTATION:–PROJECT OUTLINE:A COLLABORATIVE PUBLICATION FOR YOUNG CREATIVES WITH THE THEME CHANGES. WE WANTED TO SHOWCASE OUR SKILLS AS WELL AS THE SKILLS OF OUR CONTRIBUTORS.–OUR GOALS:TO EXPERIMENT WITH EDITORIAL DESIGN.TO HAVE A POLISHED OUTCOME THAT WILL ADD TO OUR PORTFOLIOS.TO WORK TOGETHERTO ART DIRECT, EDIT AND MANAGE A BIG PROJECT FROM START TO FINISH.–FOCUS:MANAGING & DESIGNING TO INVESTIGATE OUR THEMEOUR COLLABORATION –

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Dear Friends,

We are making a magazine to showcase the work of young creatives across a range of disciplines. It will be printed on newsprint in tabloid newspaper format, in full colour and 24 pages long. We will be printing between 500-1000 copies that will be distributed at the LCC Graphic Design Degree Show as well as in a range of other London locations (shops, cafes, galleries etc.) Therefore we hope you agree this is a great opportunity to promote your talent! Unfortunately we are unable to pay you for your work but you will get a copy for your portfolio.

Theme: The theme of this issue is ‘Changes’, you can interpret this word as closely or loosely as you like.

Format: Images and text e-mailed to [email protected] should be 300dpi and in jpeg, tiff or Photoshop format.

Info: Please provide with your work your name, e-mail and website/blog (if you have one)

Timescale: The deadline for submitting work is Monday 19th April 2010 (5 weeks from today!)

Thanks a lot,

Martina, Ana and Daisyx

(Please be aware that we will try to include all contributors’ work but this unfortunately cannot be guaranteed)

We wanted people from a range of disciplines and between us we have a large network of young creatives. Together we composed an e-mail where we kindly asked them if they wanted to produce some work for us, explaining our project and the theme. The deadline for submissions was five weeks from when we sent them the brief, that day was our first day of the summer term and official starting date of the magazine project.

I’m happy that we left so much time between their deadline and ours but it was a deliberate choice since we understood that some people would send in their work a bit late. Someone e-mailed me in despair one or two days after the given date and not often does one get to make people so happy as when you extend their deadline.

I was surprised by the response we got after sending out the brief, people were very excited to be part of our project. Some of our contributors work on a professional level and still they produced something exclusively for us. I think it was a very good motivation for us to have such responses at that stage, to see other people get inspired by our idea. It was another reassurance that we were onto something good.

When dealing with the contributors and their submissions it has become clear what a difference it makes to work with professional people. Some contributors didn’t have enough experience in producing work for print and if we had to chase them up to get files that were good enough to print well. Working with professional people makes your life a lot easier.

CONTRIBUTORS

WORKING WITH PROFESSIONAL PEOPLE

MAKES YOUR LIFE A LOT EASIER.

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One of our focus points was the fact that we were going to both manage and design this publication. In a real life publication we would be both the Editor as well as the Art-Director. This would be a challenge and in order to meet our deadline we had to set up a working schedule.

We quickly realised how much administration work a production of this scale requires. Some days in the beginning were spent completely with e-mailing and organising things. It has been a good experience though to deal with people in a professional way and to organise something this big. We set up an e-mail account for the magazine so that all of us could use that to read or send e-mails. Important e-mails had to be given the OK from all of us before they were sent.

ADMINISTRATION WORK

AN EARLY LIST OF WHAT WE HAD TO DO:–LOOKING AT SUBMISSION/CHASE UP LATE ONES–TRY TO GET A SPONSOR–RE-CONFIRM WITH PRINTER–FLATPLAN–TYPE–REGULAR MEETINGS/SESSIONS–WRITE INTERVIEW QUESTIONS–CONTACT PROFESSIONALS–STAY INSPIRED–DOCUMENT THE PROCESS–EDITORIAL–GO TO EXHIBITIONS/MAGAZINE TALKS & HAPPENINGS–SPLIT TASKS THEN ROTATE–EDIT TEXT & ARTWORK SUBMISSIONS–TEST PRINT–

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Re: advertisement / sponsorship

Dear XXXWe are three aspiring designers from the University of the Arts London working on a magazine which will be our final major project. It will be a publication featuring a selection of work by talented young creatives across a range of disciplines such as photography, illustration, design and creative writing. The magazine will be distributed in a range of independent publication retailers such as RD Franks, Donlon Books and Artwords. It will be launched on 24 June at the London College of Communication Graphic Design Show which is a prestigious event attracting thousands of professionals, graduates and students from the creative industries.

We believe our magazine has an ideal target audience for XXX. We are looking for a small sponsorship which would entitle you to a full page, full colour advertisement on the back cover of our magazine which will be beautifully printed in newsprint (tabloid size). By advertising in our magazine you will reach a wide range of possible customers.

We eagerly await your reply.Best wishes,Martina, Ana and Daisy

Our printing costs would reach £600 so we decided to try to get a sponsor to cover all, or part of our costs. In return the company would get to advertise on our back cover. It was hard to know how to approach people and companies about this; we didn’t know how much money we could ask for and the only thing we had to show was our presentation and blog.

Prior to sending out the e-mail we composed together we had a look through some other magazines with a similar target audience to see what advertisements they had. A joint feeling was that we didn’t want to ‘sell our souls’, the sponsor had to have relevance to design or our theme.

From the beginning we saw this as one of our toughest tasks and that’s why we were surprised when we quickly got two positive responses from good companies. An ‘e-mailing marathon’ begun and it proved to be easier said than done to arrange a meeting. When our meeting had been rescheduled twice already we simply decided to send them a small presentation with the project outline and some visual examples of work in progress.

We were now getting very close to our deadline and our focus had shifted from administration work towards the design. The thought of not having any advertisements in the magazine became more appealing so when we didn’t hear back from the potential sponsor we decided it was for the best.

In the end I am very happy with how things turned out. The lack of advertisment makes the magazine special and also increases the chances that people will buy our magazine. We split the cost of printing between us and even if we won’t sell enough to cover our costs it was money well spent.

If we are to do a second issue then we have a final piece to show already which will make it easier to get a sponsor. The experience and confidence gained from sending these requests out to people will also help us next time around.

SEEKING A SPONSOR

Right: All e-mails sent and recieved in regard of our

sponsorship enquiry to Edge Design.

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Dear Martina, Ana and Daisy,

Hope you are all very well. With regards to your online enquiry Steve wanted me to let you know that he is very interested and was wondering if there was any chance we could get together and talk about it further?

Kindest Regards,SarinaEdge Design

Dear Sarina,We are delighted to hear back from you and would love to set up a meeting to discuss things further in person. We were wondering if Tuesday pm or anytime on Wednesday next week would suit you?

We are looking forward to hearing from you,

Kindest RegardsMartina, Ana & Daisy

HI Martina, Ana & Daisy

Hope you are all well. I’m very sorry it’s taken me to long to get back to you. We are all very busy at the moment! Steve’s diary unfortunately is completely full this week, however he is available the following week at these times.

Thursday 6 May: 10am or 2.30pm. Or ideally the Week of the 10 May is looking pretty open at the moment.

If Thursday of next week doesn’t work for you perhaps you could let us know some dates and times that would be good for you the week of the 10th of May?

Kindest Regards,Sarina

Hi Sarina,Thursday 6th May at 2.30pm would be great for us.

Many Thanks

Hi ladies,

I’m so sorry but we’ve had to move a meeting with one of our clients so we can no longer do the 6th of May. I’m so so sorry. Would you be free the following week?


That’s no problem, would it be suitable to meet anytime Monday 10th or Tuesday 11th?Many Thanks

Thank you! Shall we say 1.30 pm on Monday the 10? Would that suit you?

Kindest RegardsSarina

Yes, Monday the 10 at 1.30 pm is perfect. Thanks a lot!

Fantastic! I will confirm it is alright with Steve when he is back in the office but it should be fine.

Thanks for all your patience with this.


Oh Magazine,

I just wanted to write to you regarding your meeting this Steve this Monday. I’m so sorry to have to do this to you again but unfortunately Steve will be unable to attend your meeting on Monday the 10th. Unfortunately we’ve just received notice this morning that Steve will need to go to Reading to see one of our clients out there.

I’m so sorry to keep having to rearrange your meeting. I understand that if this sponsorship is quite an urgent matter, perhaps it would be best to arrange a time to speak with Steve over the phone. If not, would you be able to send us some dates that would suit you. Next week is looking very busy for Steve as we are wrapping up two project but anytime after then is looking good.

Again, my most sincere apologies to have to keep rearranging. Thank you so much for your patience.

Have a lovely weekend!


Hi Sarina,Don’t worry we appreciate Steve is very busy. We put together this short presentation on our project and ideas for him to have a look at when he has the time. If he still is interested in sponsoring us we would be delighted. We would be happy to arrange a time to discuss things further over the phone if this is preferable.

If you could pass this on we would be extremely grateful.

Many Thanks,Martina, Ana & Daisy

Hi Martina, Ana & Daisy

Thank you so much for being patient and sending over your presentation. Steve is very busy this week, however when he gets a spare moment I will be sure to show him your presentation and get back to you on the best course of action.

My most sincere apologies for taking so long to get back to you about this. Thank you again for everything! I will be sure to touch base with you soon!

Kindest Regards,Sarina x

Hi Sarina,

Hope you are well. Just to let you know we will be sending our magazine off to print on Monday so if we don’t hear from you until Thursday evening that the sponsorship isn’t going ahead this time.

Thanks a lot for your time,

Best wishes,Martina, Ana and Daisy

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SELECTING ARTWORK

With the administration work taking up most of our time in the beginning we were happy as soon as we could do something more creative. Once all the artwork was submitted by our contributors we got a better overview of how to layout the magazine. We had been worried that we weren’t going to have enough content but now we realised that there was more than enough. This made us realise that maybe we didn’t have to include any content of our own, something we had previously planned.

To make the selection process easier we printed our visual submissions and laid them out on the floor. Then we each had to write down our three favourites as well as our least favourites. The results were diverse but we did agree on most things. Some work was liked by all of us and we took those to the side. Only few pieces of work had to be discussed and they were mainly of our concerns in terms of how well they would print and if they had followed our theme at all.

Our written pieces were read by all of us and then we discussed whether they were interesting enough, suitable for our target audience and if they followed our theme. The selected ones were edited by us. We had been asked to look carefully at the grammar and structure by the writers that aren’t English.

When these selections were done we could finally start to make our flatplan. The first thing we did was to team things up by deciding what pieces worked well together. One of the most important tasks for us was to curate the artwork well so the spreads would look good. The flow had be interesting and dynamic, the disposition of text heavy spreads among our more visual ones was vital.

TO FINALLY GET THE FLATPLAN DONE WAS GREAT IN TERMS OF DIVIDING TASKS AND GETTING AN OVERVIEW OF THE MAGAZINE.

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STARTING WITH THE DESIGN

Once we had the flatplan we chose two spreads each to start working with in order to generate some design ideas. At this stage we hadn’t made any mutual decisions on type, layout or grid and to make these decisions easier we felt we needed to make a range of visual experimentations. Having your selected spreads and artwork to play with made the task easier to grasp.

Before and during our project we had gathered a mass of visual inspiration, we had also done extensive research on magazine layout before. For reference when we designed we had other publications printed with Newspaper Club, they were the same size and we could also look at colours and the see-through effect of the paper. Having these magazines to look at was helpful since we couldn’t test print on our actual size or on newsprint.

We had meetings with our tutor, Joanna, once a week where we showed her the process and we discussed ideas. She was very positive to our ideas and the project so it always inspired us to talk about it with her. We attended the group crits in school but in those we only showed rough layout ideas where the submissions were covered with black boxes. We wanted the final designs to be a surprise for the rest of the class.

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–INTRODUCTION –MANAGING & DESIGNING–INVESTIGATING OUR THEME–OUR COLLABORATION–BRINGING IT ALL TOGETHER–REFLECTION–

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VISUAL EXPERIMENTS

The theme, change, came to us when we were thinking of our collaborative way of working. We also found it suitable since we are now graduating and that will be a big change in our lives. To investigate our theme and apply it both visually and in the content was one of our focus points.

After some brainstorming about how we could do this we had ideas of melting ice cube letters as display type, layouts were the changes were visible, all text in our three different languages and exclusive posters where we had done one layer each. Most of these ideas were tested to some extent, but many didn’t make it into our final piece. It was great in terms of challenging ourselves but some ideas proved a little too time consuming.

Joanna came up with the idea that we should have mini projects to perform as a group but with one person in charge of the activity. My mini project was a photographic project that we executed one day in Hampstead. My idea was that we would bring all our cameras and then we would choose subjects to photograph with each one of them. The desired result was to end up with a range of photographs, all taken of the same subjects but with various techniques, qualities and standards. Since many of our cameras aren’t digital this made the project a little difficult to finish, we have been so busy that we haven’t had time to finish those films or get them developed. However I do believe that if this would be done again with more time it could result in a nice outcome.

These mini projects were more of fun experimentations though and since we filled our magazine with contributors work we had no space to include our own.

Right: Photographs taken by all of us during

my mini project.

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Ana was in charge of the co-lab illustrations and

Daisy made a little activity using old family slides.

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INTERVIEWS

Early on we had the idea that we wanted to do small interviews with creative people we admire. This idea stayed with us and we started to think about what questions to ask them. We decided to follow our theme and ask questions that related to change. After creating a template e-mail with four questions we bravely sent it to all people we dreamt of including in the magazine.

People turned out to be very nice and we were overwhelmed with some of our answers. To open our mailbox and see names such as Anthony Burrill, Adrian Shaughnessy and Rob Ryan was a bit surreal. They had taken their time to answer in depth and they wished us good luck with our project. Some people had even taken their time to look at our blog, commenting on how much they liked it. They all wanted to see the finished result.

To make these interviews was a tactic move as well, we sent the questions to some of our favourite studios and we are hoping that this will make them remember our names.

The idea of asking professionals these questions developed further when I was thinking of the fact that we should introduce our contributors a bit more to the readers. We asked them the same questions and then chose one or two answers to include on the page of their work. This worked well in the end no matter how personal or truthful their answer was or wasn’t, it added a nice touch to their work. These small interviews helped us to enhance the theme throughout the magazine and it was interesting to get so many people’s thoughts on it.

“LOOKING FORWARD TO SEEING IT. I LOVE YOUR BLOG BY THE WAY, LOOKS LIKE YOU

HAVE FUN, KEEP IT UP!”–

ANTHONY BURRILL

“OF COURSE WE WOULD LIKE TO PARTICIPATE IN YOUR MAGAZINE. WE TOOK A LOOK AT YOUR BLOG AND FOUND IT VERY INSPIRING. LIKE YOUR LOGO A LOT!”–SISSI EDHOLM & LISA ULLENIUS

OUR INTERVIEW QUESTIONS

WHAT HAS BEEN THE BIGGEST CHANGE OF YOUR LIFE?–WHAT FUTURE CHANGES DO YOU ANTICIPATE WITHIN YOUR CREATIVE FIELD?–WHEN DO YOU KNOW WHEN A PIECE OF WORK IS FINISHED AND DOESN’T NEED MORE CHANGES?–WHAT IS SOMETHING YOU WOULD LIKE TO CHANGE IF YOU COULD?–

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PATTERNS OF CHANGE

The co-lab illustrations led us to a new idea, patterns. Using the same idea of doing a layer each and then passing the document on we all started a pattern each. Some of them turned out better than others but it was more visually pleasing and fun than the illustrations. Our initial idea was to use these patterns in the magazine as a visual element on some pages and to make clipping masks for our display type.

The patterns kept changing each time one of us completed their layer. We started off freestyle but quickly moved onto only using geometric shapes. In a draw, we each were allocated a shape; circle, square or triangle to start a pattern with. We had 45 minutes to complete our layer then it had to be passed on. When all of us had made a layer each on the patterns we decided they were done. The triangle pattern from this session is the one we later re-worked slightly to be our final one, used on the cover of the magazine. In the end we didn’t use the patterns in any other places of the magazine. Our initial ideas had changed many times and so had the outcome, all linking back to our theme and the fact that we are a group of three working together as a team.

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TEAM WORK

Naturally one of the focus points was our collaboration. We entered the project with the belief that we would be equal contributors on all levels. The whole process of work and who was to do what at what time wasn’t something we stressed about, it all made sense as we went along.

In the beginning we had regular meetings where we did important things together and then set tasks for each one of us to do. When we weren’t together working we discussed things on Skype and sent countless e-mails back and forth.

The design decisions were made in the same way, we all started working on different spreads without a grid or set rules. Once we had something to show we all looked at it and gave our opinions of what was working and what wasn’t. From these individual trials our preferred style emerged and we could slowly decide on some mutual design features. We applied those and kept working. If someone felt uninspired and bored with their spread we could simply switch or do some other things that had to be done.

We have quite similar taste when it comes to design and esthetics which I think is good, maybe even a must sometimes when working together. However, of course we think differently too, otherwise our designs would be very boring.

It’s natural that team work generates more ideas. When you are physically sitting in the same place doing work you share all the ideas you get by saying them out loud. It doesn’t’ matter if the ideas are good or bad because you always get some kind of reaction and from these reactions the idea might transform into something great. Everyone wants to come up with good ideas, specially in the company of others and this makes you think hard for them.

Right: A small and un-edited selection of our

Skype conversations.

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[2010-05-07 20.03.24] Daisy Dudley: shame about the meeting[2010-05-07 20.03.36] Martina Dahl: yes but we said that we should send them the pdf[2010-05-07 20.03.42] ana rachel: yep but martina has a plan![2010-05-07 20.03.55] Martina Dahl: and after we have sent it maybe we can have a phone meeting cos then they’ll now a bit more[2010-05-07 20.04.03] Martina Dahl: we could send it on monday like we planned[2010-05-07 20.04.13] ana rachel: can we speak call a bit?[2010-05-07 20.04.18] Martina Dahl: just need a tiny bit more writing than we planned[2010-05-07 20.04.26] Martina Dahl: for them to understand more[2010-05-07 20.04.29] Martina Dahl: yes–

Daisy Dudley: 13:46:46hello, ana suggested we try to arrange a meeting with the cass people wednesday, is that good by you?Martina Dahl: 14:09:20yep, thats good for me!Daisy Dudley: 14:09:37ok great, ill send the e-mail nowMartina Dahl: 14:09:45thank you!Daisy Dudley: 14:09:55Dear Mark,Thanks for getting back to us. We would love to meet, would anytime this Wednesday be good for you? Many Thanks,Martina, Ana and DaisyDaisy Dudley: 14:10:00does that sound ok?Martina Dahl: 14:10:44perfectDaisy Dudley: 14:11:54greatDaisy Dudley: 14:27:15we haven’t hurd back from the fish man yet have weMartina Dahl: 14:27:26nopeDaisy Dudley: 14:35:15do you think it’s worth me contacting my friend about urban outfitter sponsoring us or just wait to see how these two go.Martina Dahl: 14:36:31i think we should wait till after the meeting maybe, we still have time thenMartina Dahl: 14:36:58saves us the effort now cos hopefully they want usDaisy Dudley: 14:37:30yea and also I haven’t spoke to her in ages so ill leave it for nowDaisy Dudley: 15:23:52I’m planning on e-mailing these people the interview questions today–

Martina Dahl: 18:28:47should we maybe make the pdf for steve and maybe e-mail it to them so they can read about it and then we can have a phone meeting?ana rachel: 18:29:03yesssssssssMartina Dahl: 18:29:19if they know more it will be easier , we can send it to them on mondayMartina Dahl: 18:29:38maybe we can answer her now an suggest thatana rachel: 18:29:41sounds good, very goodana rachel: 18:29:59she leftt already, its half sixMartina Dahl: 18:30:03and then we need to do a bit more writing in the pdf, but we can still make it briefMartina Dahl: 18:30:24ah, well, lets get it ready for monday on sunday and then we send itMartina Dahl: 18:30:44and we can say that he can have a look and we can speak on the phoneana rachel: 18:33:37i think thats a very good idea–

Martina Dahl: 22:12:52going well thanks! I have been editing the wwoof text which have been taking quite longMartina Dahl: 22:12:59how are you?Martina Dahl: 22:13:05I love our patterns!Daisy Dudley: 22:14:01I’m good, just trying to do some more layouts. had quite a productive mornign but bit of a sleepy afternoon. I like the patterns too, have have both of them again!Martina Dahl: 22:16:08heheMartina Dahl: 22:16:36but i think they will be amazing in the end and so perfect for thank you cards and display typeDaisy Dudley: 22:19:55yes think its going to look cool, did u see the e-mail from the shop guys, he was so enthusiastic which is niceMartina Dahl: 22:25:39yes that was nice, just curious of how much they will take cos we dont wanna sell for too much but also we should make a small profit i thinkDaisy Dudley: 22:26:48yes we will see when he sends us more details, will be trickyMartina Dahl: 22:27:22what time will you come around tomo?Daisy Dudley: 22:27:57what time do u want me, can come any timeMartina Dahl: 22:29:42well whenever you we have no toher plansMartina Dahl: 22:29:56we migth bake some breadMartina Dahl: 22:30:08and the sooner u get here the more fun!–

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DECISION MAKING

It wasn’t until we test-printed our spreads that we started to make some bigger decisions. We realised then that our type was massive so we had to change it a few point sizes. We also started off byusing Frutiger but later switched to Univers. The Serifa was chosen after careful comparisons with some other similar typefaces. We made all major decisions together and everything had to be accepted by two of us to go through.

We printed a mock-up of the whole magazine a number of times to check the flow of the content. Many spreads were changed just by swapping the two pages around. These swaps made a big difference but if we hadn’t printed the single pages we might not have done them.

One afternoon we went to Richard Hollis for tea and advice. We brought a mock-up of the magazine and he was happy to have a look. Overall he was pleased with what we had, he even said some spreads were very strong. Of course he had a few suggestions for improvements and changes and we gladly took notes.

The interview spread was special to us, we all did work on this and it underwent many changes. I lost count off how many times it was passed between us. It was hard to fit all content without making the spread look too busy. The hierarchy was essential and the legibility. Since we are sending the magazine to all persons interviewed we want them to look at it and be impressed. I am very happy with the final version as it is an interesting typographic spread yet with complementing visual elements.

These three spreads were all improved by swapping

the two pages around.

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The interview spread was the hardest one to get right, it was passed

between us a number of times and underwent many changes.

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Photographs taken when we occasionally left the studio.

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OUTSIDE THE STUDIO

For research purpose and in order to find new inspiration we did many magazine or design related things during our project. It was necessary to leave the studio to get some fresh ideas. When you are working close together under stressful conditions it is essential to also do fun things together outside the working space.

It was interesting to hear about other people’s magazine ideas and projects. Sketchbook magazine has got a purpose very similar to ours; “Sketchbook is a quarterly magazine that showcases established and emerging creative talents in fashion, design and culture with a focus on features, photography and illustration.” Their pop-up store off Carnaby street was well put together and a very impressive project. We went to the talk Print v/s Online where Adrian Shaughnessy and Becky Smith were two of the people in the panel.

One of the owners of Donlon Books is a big fan of publications printed on newsprint and we told her about our project. She will be a useful contact in terms of distribution.

To get some fresh air from time to time and to let our eyes rest we allocated some of our meetings to the park which always put us in a better mood. Our blog was working as a sketchbook of visual inputs gathered during everything we did and it is nice to go to our posting archive to remember the fun times.

THINGS WE DID OUTSIDE THE STUDIO –BLOOD, SWEAT & FEARS–SKETCHBOOK POP-UP STORE, PRINT V/S ONLINE TALK–DONLON BOOKS, TALK ABOUT NEWSPRINT & ART–PICK ME UP, GRAPHICS FAIR–THE ART OF CONVERSATION–KEMISTRY GALLERY–MONIKA MAGAZINE LAUNCH–

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PREPARING FOR PRINT

Things were coming together. We had most of the layout and content figured out so now it was the details that needed to be taken care of. During our later half of the project I was actually living at Ana’s place and this was very good in terms of working nonstop. Daisy would come to Ana’s as well during daytime so we were gathered almost everyday, weekends included.

Most of the time we did work on our own computers but every now and then we had to all sit in front of Ana’s iMac. This was efficient in terms of quickly making decisions and changes but it can be too intense when everyone is tired and the mood is slumping.

Ana and I often sat in front of her computer late at night doing some adjustments or discussing layout options. Many good ideas came to us during these sessions. Since we weren’t meant to be working our minds were more relaxed and we had fun. We looked at the typesetting and line-breaks, resulting in endless little tweaks.

A lot of time during the last week was dedicated to proof readings. We had printed out pages that all of us read a number of times. The document was looked at closely in search for typos, double spaces, wrong typesetting and other errors.

Even though we worked nonstop and had loads to do all the time I never felt too stressed. We were keeping up with our time schedule and sent the files off to print a day early. I feel I sometimes lack discipline when working on my own but never when we are working with our group projects; then the motivation is always there.

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Equipped with different coloured pens we each looked at our pages and

read the text. This image clearly demonstrates the importance of this step.

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Our written elements in the magazine, specially the editorial, were amended until the last moments. We wanted the language to be good and error free. To get the editorial to its final stage we had help from Richard Hollis again. We sent our draft to him and he kindly suggested changes and corrections via e-mail.

Since we were printing on newsprint we had to adjust some things to fit the paper. The contrast has to be increased if the image is black and white and for colour images the balance between white and black is important. The litho printing process only works if the images are CMYK hence this needed to be double checked at the end. The colours we used for visual elements were also changed to use as few components at possible to help the registration to be at its best. Some colours were made stronger to not disappear on the newsprint and a few images made lighter to not appear too dark.

LAST CHANGES

Colours were adjusted to better suit newsprint until

the last moments.

–41 –

Welcome to the first issue of Oh!

Oh! is a collaborative publication between Martina Dahl, Ana Rachel and Daisy Dudley; the three of us have participated equally on all levels of the making of (delete – unnecessary) this project from start to finish, with rotating roles, always exchanging ideas and inspirations. (Delete ‘s’ – we don’t use inspiration in the plural.)

Our theme for this launch issue is Changes, (it would be better to delete the ‘s’ – it’s possible but unusual in the plural – you could ask another English person) a theme that came to us when thinking about our collaborative way of working. There is constant change around us, both on visible levels (it might be better to say ‘both plainly visible’, partly to avoid using the word ‘level’ again) and also more hidden, personal ones (instead of ‘personal ones’ I suggest ‘more personal)’. We felt that the breadth and diversity of the topic would allow freedom, in terms of (‘in terms of’ isn’t really needed – easier would be . . ‘freedom in both subject . . .’ ) subject matter and media, for our contributors. These include both aspiring and established young creatives from a variety of fields who have interpreted our theme to create (this is getting rather a long sentence. Maybe take out ‘to create’ and start a new sentence.) a selection of work that we find inspiring. (Instead I suggest: ‘We find the selection of work inspirational.’) We are showcasing this work with the intention of providing a platform of exposure to all those interested. In addition, we sent questions to people we admire within the creative industry and are proud to include their thoughts and musings (musings is quite funny – I suggest ‘reflections’) on our theme.

We have been wanting to create (‘make’ much better than ‘create’ which is a bit pretentious) this magazine for a long time. and the process of producing this first issue has been a hugely enjoyable experience. We would like to thank all participants and readers, we hope you will enjoy it too! (It’s complicated to show how and why this sentence would be better rearranged, but your enjoyment in making the magazine needs to be better linked to the hope that the readers will enjoy it. )

The Editors:

Martina, Ana & Daisy

–Richard’s suggestions

Welcome to the first issue of Oh!

Oh! is a collaborative publication between Martina Dahl, Ana Rachel and Daisy Dudley. The three of us have participated equally on all levels of this project from start to finish, with rotating roles, always exchanging ideas and inspiration.

Our theme for this launch issue is Change, a theme that came to us when thinking about our collaborative way of working. There is constant change around us: both clear to see, and also more hidden, more personal. We felt that the breadth and diversity of the topic of Change would allow freedom, in both subject matter and media, for our contributors. These include both aspiring and established young artists and designers from a variety of fields who have interpreted our theme. This makes a collection of their work that we find exciting. The intention of Oh! is to bring this variety of talent to the attention of a wide audience. In addition, we have sent questions to people we admire within the creative industry and are proud to include their reflections on our theme.

We would like to thank all participants and readers, and hope that you will enjoy this first issue as much as we have enjoyed the process of its production.

The Editors:

Martina, Ana & Daisy

–Our final version

–42 –

70mm

70mm

WE DESGINED OH! STICKERS TO

PROMOTE OUR MAGAZINE.

–43 –

EXTRAS

Our ideas in terms of making some extra inserts or limited edition posters for the magazine changed during our project. We realised that it would be too time consuming to screenprint posters and we didn’t have a given motif for them. Instead we decided to turn our finished pattern into screenprinted postcards and the idea for this was that they could be sent out as thank you cards together with the magazine to our contributors. We transformed the pattern slightly by only using three colours now for it to be more easily printed but also to represent the three of us.

In addition to the postcards we have also produced Oh! stickers and a MAD light. This has been made possible with the kind help from Daisy’s dad who works with various signage in America. The lamp is for our exhibition and the stickers will be great for promotion but also stuck onto the envelopes when sending out the magazine.

350mm

Approx 200mm

–44 –

–45 –

–INTRODUCTION–MANAGING & DESIGNING–INVESTIGATING OUR THEME–OUR COLLABORATION –BRINGING IT ALL TOGETHER –REFLECTION –

–46 –

WE MADE A MAGAZINE!

We waited eagerly for our printed magazines to arrive and finally they did. It feels a bit surreal to see a stack of 500 newspapers after staring at a screen for so many weeks. It was thrilling as well as scary to flick through the magazine for the first time. My overall first feeling was contentment and happiness but then you start searching for mistakes. Luckily we had done a very good job and there are not much to be annoyed about. Of course some details could have been changed and improved but I think it is natural to feel this way.

The registration is good, not perfect, but we didn’t expect that. I love the first spread with our editorial. All the colours are much more subtle, which we knew but still it is weird to see how much they change. Still our colours look good and the photos as well. The Serifa type looks great. I am happy with all our type choices, both the typefaces and point sizes.

The annoying thing is how badly they trimmed it, but there’s nothing to do about that. The see-through effect was something we anticipated and desired, in some pages there is more show through than on others but it never disturbs the content.

I did discover one typo, but only one, it is my own e-mail address. Quite typical since you never check your own details as well as others. Another mistake is the light green box around the facts about wwoof, in the final document we had forgotten to check if it was 100% filled or not. I changed it in one of my documents but here we forgot. This is the only negative thing about working on different files, some changes that you make to one file might be forgotten in the final one.

One thing is certain though, we have fulfilled our goal of creating a beautiful piece for our portfolios. I will be proud to send this out to my favourite studios and to bring it to interviews.

–47 –

TYPOGRAPHIC DETAILS TO THINK ABOUT:–IS IT LEGIBLE? WHEN PRINTING ON NEWSPRINT THE TYPE MIGHT NOT APPEAR AS CLEAR SINCE THE PAPER ABSORBS MORE INK THAN SOME OTHER PAPERS. OUR LOWEST POINT SIZE WAS 7.5 WITH A SANS SERIF TYPEFACE.–IF YOU ARE USING DIFFERENT POINT SIZES THEN MAKE SURE IT IS OBVIOUS THAT THEY ARE DIFFERENT SIZE ON PURPOSE SO IT DOESN’T LOOK LIKE A MISTAKE. REMEMBER TO ADJUST THE LEADING ACCORDINGLY.–IF YOU ARE USING DIFFERENT TYPEFACES IN YOUR DOCUMENT THEN MAKE SURE THESE ARE CONTRASTING ENOUGH TO MAKE IT MORE DYNAMIC. MAYBE CHOOSE TWO VARIOUS TYPEFACES AND THEN PLAY AROUND WITH DIFFERENT VARIATIONS OF THEM.–THINK ABOUT THE HIERARCHY YOU WANT ON A CERTAIN PAGE. REMEMBER THAT LIGHT COLOURS MIGHT MAKE A DISPLAY TYPE NOT STAND LESS THAN YOU WANT.–ATTENTION TO DETAIL IS IMPORTANT. LOOK AT @ SIGNS FOR EXAMPLE, IT IS LIKELY THAT YOU HAVE TO MAKE THEM HALF A POINT SIZE SMALLER AND BRING THEM DOWN A LITTLE SO THEY WON’T STAND OUT TOO MUCH. –

USEFUL THINGS I’VE LEARNED:–SOME NEW SHORTCUTS AND FUNCTIONS IN ALL THREE SOFTWARE. SOME HANDY TIPS IN ILLUSTRATOR WERE YOU CAN SELECT ALL OBJECTS WITH THE SAME APPEARANCE. IN PHOTOSHOP HOW YOU BEST ENLARGE IMAGES AND COVERT TO CMYK. –THAT THE IMAGES HAS TO BE RE-SIZED IN PHOTOSHOP TO THE SIZE THEY WILL BE PRINTED AT, THIS IS TO AVOID THEM TO PRINT TOO DARK DUE TO EXCESS DPI. NO IMAGES SHOULD BE MORE THAN 300. –TO REMEMBER TO CONVERT ALL IMAGES TO CMYK. THIS I KNEW BUT THERE ARE SO MANY DIFFERENT PROFILES TO CHOOSE FROM. IT IS IMPORTANT TO KNOW IF THE PAPER IS COATED OR UNCOATED. NEWSPRINT IS UNCOATED.–THE IMPORTANCE OF PROOF READING THE DOCUMENT A MILLION TIMES ON SCREEN AND MORE IMPORTANTLY PRINTED OUT ON PAPER. IN INDESIGN IT IS HELPFUL TO USE THE FIND/CHANGE FUNCTION. –

–48 –

If I look back at our goals from the first presentation then I can happily say that we have achieved all of them. We have managed this project from start to finish using our collaborative way of working. We contributed equally on all levels of the making and this method of working proved both successful and necessary. Our editorial design skills has been tested and proven to be enough to create a magazine that stands out from other, similar publications. Oh! magazine will add to our portfolios and the end of year show.

The most important thing when leaving university and your course is to have the confidence to identify yourself as a graphic designer and to have the courage to go out and get a job. With this project I think we have all gotten a bit more confident. It is a good project in terms of summing up the degree. We have taken all the knowledge gained in the past three years and it has proven to be enough to make our own publication. It clearly shows how much we have developed as designers. We met on the course and have now done this together. We have found a team that we like working in and hopefully we can continue to work on various projects in the future. I think we are capturing what our course has been all about with Oh!

Being friends is not necessary something that will translate into a successful working team, I think for us being this good as a team has made us into very good friends. I would do a second issue of the magazine without any hesitation.

“PERHAPS ‘OH !’ SHOULD BE CALLED ‘WOW !’ YOU’VE DONE A REALLY GOOD JOB, A PLEASURE TO LOOK AT, AND THE CONTENT INTERESTING. NO TYPOS. A SEARCH FOR IMPERFECTIONS HAS FOUND NOTHING. NOT YET.THE COVER’S NICE TOO CONGRATULATIONS.”–Richard Hollis

ACHIEVING OUR GOALS

Right: Our final pieces arranged together to wrap

up this project.

–49 –

–50 –

–THE

END–

A MAD Major Project

Documents

Transcript of A MAD Major Project