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

Interesting Book in Creative Review

I came across this article on the Creative Review blog and couldn't help but think it would be a great way to present our zine!

http://www.creativereview.co.uk/cr-blog/2008/february/what-no-jewel-case

It is a set of CD's and a booklet in a box...

We could have a set of mini zines put together like this (above). They would be like a small booklet (see below)

And then i love this part....it all folds out into a big poster!!!

I can't help but think this is brilliant!!!


Abbie xxx

Time Management

I've made a rough plan of when we could do things as a team for our Zine:

Maybe we could start by adding things that we've collected to the blog and think about the style and tone of voice we'd like to use? If we decide on this early we can add the articles and features as we go along to save rushing it all at the end? I've put in bold things that we could do at home on a night.

I thought we could ask for volenteers on creative courses who would want their work and themselves featured in a new magazine? If we do that early we could plot on the calender when these would take place. I've put a few on already as an example but they'll have to change to fit in with their scheduals. If we allocate two days, first for photoshoot and inerview then we can edit the text and photos that night and add them to the zine together the next day.

I was looking on the brief it said we should write 2000 words each so maybe every weekend we find interesting topics to discuss and write 500 words on them and source pictures.

This is a rough guide at the moment but once we have solidified what we are actually doing we can properly devise a critical pathway then...

Sofie xxx

Inspirational Layouts

I have started to look at inspirational layouts for our Zine and came across this editorial from Vice magazine inspired the idea of documenting interesting people-almost like Facebook stalking but through print instead of online.

If we were to lay ours out like this for instance, the features could include interviews, a photoshoot and a selection of creative work.

Sofie xxx

FreeStyle Magazine

I have started reading and collecting FreeStyle Magazine. I absolutely love it and feel I can draw inspiration from here to our Zine we are creating.

In a sense, FreeStyle is so creative in its layout and form that it could almost be a Zine.

To start it comes in a different frisbee each issue designed by someone well known in the creative industry-the example I will show below is of one created by Paul Smith. The issue is also of a rounded shape so that it fits into the frisbee - something quirky I feel.

The particualar issue I am showing below features a contents in a weird numbered form to produce larger numbers and the editors letter and contributions is beautifully illustrated!

So from this magazine there is loads of inspiration. From the actual shape, the added extra of the frisbee, the images, the way the contents is layed out in a visual way and the fact it is designed by creatives for the creative industry.

Abbie xxx

Current Zines on Sale

After the lecture the other day on ther zine introduction...we decided to investigate the other zines out there to see if we could gain inpiration from them. There were so many we couldn't fit them all in one post!

IT'S NICE THAT

"It’s Nice That is a tri-annually published arts and culture magazine. Including in-depth interviews and articles focussing on, and written by, practitioners from all over the world, It’s Nice That publishes original content in a format that gives the work the respect it deserves. The magazine is available online at itsnicethat.com, as well as from numerous international stockists."

I liked the way it was presented in a book type format so it looks professional and sleek...

I also liked how on the website the information about the Zine was split into 'launch', 'work', 'interviews' etc so it ave you a great deal of information without spoiling the actual content!

STACK MAGAZINES

"Stack is a unique service that brings together the best independent English language magazines from around the world and delivers them direct to your home. Beautifully made and offering an intelligent, alternative view of films, music, art and whatever else crosses their pages, they guarantee a fresh perspective on the world. Every Stack delivery is a surprise – you never know what you’re going to get next, but you do know that it will be an excellent independent magazine that you probably wouldn’t otherwise have found."

Although it isn't a Zine i really love the sweet branded package they deliver content in:

NIEVES

"Nieves is an independent publishing house based in Zurich, Switzerland. Founded in 2001, Nieves' focus is on publishing Artists' Books and Zines."

I love their little logo as it is in keeping with the low-fi zine format.

ZINESWAP

The fact you can swap zines is really cool. We are loving this!

Abbie and Sofie xxx

Zine Introduction

We were given this lecture by our lecturer for this project. It focuses on this zine project and gives us places to visit for inspiration and to check out what all the fuss is about!

Below are slides from the lecture:

As you can see there are loads of places to gain inspiration with the long list of zines and publishing places. Better get swatting!


Abbie xxx