Alec Dudson
Intern Magazine
Notes from the talk:
Crowdfunded first issue
Degree in sociology- Path into magazine design wasn't as straightforward as most. Had no formal training. There was reassurance of independent magazines . Magazine called Boat was a huge influence.
Did an internship in Milan with Domus which is a magazine about architecture and spent 2 months there. Didn't know how to speak italian, knew nothing about architecture. Thought that it would be a nightmare however found it really eye opening. Came back to UK and moved to London. 7 Months internship with Boat magazine which was unpaid. Purpose of Boat magazine that he believed in, Each issue goes to different cities. Athens in 2012. Olympic park ghost town- No one uses it. Just after riots. After 9 months internship decided to make his own publication. That engages in the realities of the workforce it deserves. In terms of quality of work may not be finished product. Tabloid has 12 pages which was lead by KICKSTARTER. The great thing about crowd funding 'Opportunity is there to keep complete control over your project. No investors interfering'
Alec Pledged for £5,500 got back £7,115 with 347 backers. Design tinted stuff that wrote about intern mag when it was beginning. The independent New York, Domus, Dezeen, fvf, Nicca Vice, PSFK.
Issue 1- Copper foiled sept last year, GFK paper- Very expensive. Distributed it himself, clear vision of why stores it would sell best at. Shipping was very expensive.
Simple strip back look. Important that the design doesn't take away the respect of the artists work. Uses sponsorships rather then advertisements which meant that Intern designed them so they weren't an interfering with the aesthetics of the magazine. Fashion images used with crisp typography.
intern-mag.com
@Thisisintern
BRIEF: In groups design a concept of an independent magazine
In my group : Laura, Grace, Adam, Ant and Me
Planning:
Concept-Topics:
Theatre magazine
Coast Towns
Regional towns
Chairs-Furniture-Lights
People on the Street-Street Fashion-Homeless-Elderly- Young- All different backgrounds
-Travel Magazine
Print Processes/ Production
Pastries
Children Magazine- Pop up- Independent writers short stories-Child Storires-Themed magazines-Interviews children from different cultures, race, religion, multi cultural- Pull out posters
From this list of potential topics we decided to do the Children Magazine idea, as we felt that the market for independent magazines was very small, if any at all.
Audience:
Age 6-12 years
Parents would be buying so would need to appeal to parents
Aesthetic:
Colourful, Illustrative, non formal, silly, Illustrative, no photography. Flip book
Strategy-Kickstarter
Percentage for example (£1) of every sale goes to a charity. Each week the magazine promotes a different children charity.
Lifespan
Bi-Monthly- Every 2 Months
Progression
Themes through each other imagery the spine that when collected together makes an image.
Magazine
-We are lightbulb. Lightbulb is designed for children between the ages of 6-12 years old. We are bi-monthly with a focus on commissioning independent writers to write short stories, fictional stories based on fact and illustrators Each magazine will be themed. For our first issue it is about space.
Percentage of the proceeds of each sale will go to dedicated children's charity which will change each magazine, with there logo/advert in the mag
Advertisements will be related to the theme so for example national space museum and children's activities
Aesthetics on the spine each publication will make up an image so they are collectors items.
Above is the sort of idea we would like to use for our magazine.
Below are the group planning sheets:
Grace worked on the Title/ Logo for the magazine. We decided on the name lightbulb as a sign that loosely links with the magazine being educational without saying educational.
We decided that the best design was the full colour block, however depending on the background of the issue would depend on the colour used either white or black.
We decided on a wholly illustrated aesthetic. These images from 'Space Race' from Nobrow were exactly the kind of look we wanted to go for. We decided with some help from Alec that our first issuse would be about Space as it is a topical subject due to the recent comet landing.
Laura worked primarily on the front cover with input from the rest of the group.
I was really pleased with the final product. I thought that as a group we had come up with a solid idea and concept which if we were to continue to make the rest of the magazine it would be rather successful.
(Info from Grace's Blog) :
Finally, we had to present our ideas to the rest of the group with the help of the pictures above. Grace led the presentation and explained most of the main points. Sam Cook thought that our chosen age range of 6-12 might be a bit broad as the look we had gone for might not appeal to 6 year olds, and if we were to do it we might have to separate the age group to make more age appropriate magazines.
Grace explained our Kickstarter idea (using crowd funding to finance the start up of the magazine) - we would create an animation of a rocket taking off from earth and travelling through the solar system, with a voice explaining the concept of the magazine to adults. Alec said that it was really important that we aimed the Kickstarter to adults, as they would be the ones backing the idea and buying the magazine for their children. The video idea would be eye catching to adults if it was well animated and kept with the aesthetic of the magazine.
After this we as a group we had a small chat about perhaps collaborating together to create the rest of this issue, which would be incredible because as a group we worked really well together to create what in my opinion is a really strong interesting front cover.
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