Adam Thompson Lecture

Adam Thompson, ex Advertising Director of Wonderland Magazine came to talk to us today about the industry and what he thinks the future of magazines will be. It was very interesting and we could tell the insights he was giving us were genuine. It opened our eyes!

Here is a copy of the presentation:

It was really insightful and will help us to write our essays on The Future of Magazines!


Abbie and Sofie xxx



Amelias Magazine Lecture

Today we had Amelia from Amelia's Magazine give us a talk about what she does and the magazine she creates.

The website:

"Amelia’s Magazine was printed biannually for 5 years from 2004-2009 across 10 issues, many of which are now collectors’ items sought after by creatives across the world. Amelia’s Magazine online is now the place to come for exclusive articles on the best underground creative projects in the worlds of art, fashion, music, illustration, photography, craft and design. Amelia’s Magazine is updated daily in four sections: art, fashion, music and earth."

She was really inspirational and I loved the fact that every issue of her magazine had a different interactive covers including one that was scratch and sniff!

She set open briefs for illustrations to include in her work and when we pitched our idea to her she suggested open briefs may work well for us too. So watch this space!

Abbie xxx

Teal Triggs Lecture

Teal Triggs, the author of the book 'Fanzines' came in to talk to us. She was really great in giving us an understanding of the history behind zines.

Her lecture was entitled 'FanZines-a DIY Revolution?'

Lecture Highlights

- Frederick Wortham commented in 1973 that Zines were "a special form of communication."

- Stephen Duncombe commented in 1997 that Zines were "little publications filled with rantings of high weirdness and exploding with chaotic design."

A zine is a way of testing out your ideas rather than having constraints by publishers - it allows for an individual voice!

Teal showed us some really lovely examples of Fanzines throughout the talk, here are a few examples:

• NEW WORLDS FAN-ZINE 1939 - cover by Harry Turner

•   SPACE TIMES ZINE 1950s

•  THE SUBURBAN PRESS



The fanzine phenomenon was really popular throughout the 1970's Punk era. Suburban Press created by Jamie Reid was a radical political punk zine of the time. The ransom-note look he used with the Sex Pistols graphics came from this magazine which some may say defines the punk DIY look.



•  SNIFFIN' GLUE





One of the most acclaimed and influential Punk zines 'Sniffin Glue' was produced by Mark Perry. The publication reflected the DIY aspect of Punk with the headlines being written in black marker pen and layout having no real order



It was really great getting to understand the history of Zines and how they have developed through the years. I thought it was a recent phenomena but apparently Zines have been around for ever!

Abbie xxx

Fever Zine Lecture

Today we had Alex Zamora from Fever Zine http://www.feverzine.co.uk/ give us a lecture on the nature of Zines.

About Fever Zine

Independent magazines and zines are a growth market and a recently successful example of this has been Fever Zine. Fever Zine is a popular quarterly zine based in London.

Its contents focus mainly on music, art, DIY culture, trends and e-culture, with fashion, music videos and other zines also featuring heavily. The zine was created and is edited, by British music and arts journalist Alex Zamora with design by Simon Whybray.

According to its MySpace profile the publication is available at a variety of cultural hotspots in London such as the Institute of Contemporary Arts, as well as around the United Kingdom, however it is mainly distributed through the Internet.

The Lecture Highlights

- WIRED - we were told of how Wired Magazine linked up with Adobe to create an app for the Iphone.

•content designed specifically for the touch screen experience

•easy navigation methods, including an innovative zoomed-out "Browse Mode"

•the ability to browse image slideshows

•embedded 360 degree object viewers

•support for video and audio content

•the ability to rotate content using device accelerometer functionality

In addition, with this digital magazine concept, advertisers have new possibilities for displaying ad content. Advertisers can develop rich-media magazine "inserts" to provide expanded information to customers directly within the magazine experience — without directing the reader’s attention away to a Web site. Publishers can also offer expanded ad formats that include animation and embedded video. Finally, as is the case with most digital advertising, this new magazine concept opens the possibility for more precise advertising performance metrics beyond the comparatively crude audience measurement/ad engagement techniques in use today.

- FLICK THROUGH ZINE VIDEOS

People are starting to promote their Zines through flick through videos. They video themselves opening each page of the Zine so the viewer can get an idea of whats inside.

This is an example below:

Overall this lecture was really useful as we can consider how to make our website interesting and how to promote our Zine possibly through a flick through video.

Abbie xxx