Day one:
My first job was to try and absorb the workings of Quark and the Big Issue specific layouts, themes and type technicalities. Having a short attention span this wasn’t so easy and as per usual I found my own way through the layout tasks I’d been given. Mark (design head) was good in that he sat me down and explained various aspects of the magazine and their in house preferences on content, type, stories, style and so on. The information Mark had been giving to me on layout technicalities was in depth and the work was fairly satisfying but it’s not really something I found creative so I really appreciated being handed an illustration briefs to stretch my brain a little. Mark dug out a brief for an article on the Government initiative to support people with Mental Health problems to start up businesses. This was good experience for me in that it showed maybe what I could do and would be expected to do in a short period of time with minimal access to visual content for me to play with. The illustration (below) was produced in three to four hours with a couple of hours for generating ideas and gaining a feel for the image to match the article. The style of the image I found interesting as it was so different to what I would normally produce and this was partly due to limitations on tools at my disposal in the office (the Mac being the only one) and the time permitted.
Notes ***Met editor Kevin Tuesday 14th July, ass editor on Wed 15th. TingTing layout.*** Today the layouts went better as some of what I’d learned from the first couple of days had sunk in somewhere deep in the pits of my brain. Although it wasn’t breaking any layout boundaries it did seem that the TingTings feature layout was a competent effort on my part and was up to scratch. I would probably play about more so on the next now that I seem to have my head around a regular layout. It’s been a good exercise for me in that it confirms what bread and butter projects might be like but also that I’d need to generate my own work in addition to it for my own satisfaction.
At the end of the week as was asked to help put together the contents page for the arts section which I did find to be good fun with the added time pressures involved and the fact that it was a real time project and I’d have the chance to see my page in print (if I made a good enough job of it). I was sent the sheet from the previous issue and given the new type content and the new series of photos to go with it. I spent a bit of time mathing the content up with the right photographs and the rest of the time cropping and resizing the photos and moving the various images around the page to get them fit, to get some hierachy in terms of the importance or reader pull of each story. Some of the photographs had too small an area to allow the type to show up on top of them so I had to use semi transparent sections of tone to give some contrast. Eventually the page found some visual balance an was sent of to the head designer for approval and any changes that needed to be made, then over to the printers with the rest of the magazine.
The experience I gained at the Big Issue was a real insight and valuable as it gave a true reflection of the workings, time restraints and communications between different departments. Also, the magazine kept a good opinion of its self and stayed true to its beliefs and its value to the community. The editor also retained a strong view in what the magazine should be doing, which I found reassuring.
