So tired tonight.
We're nearly there now.
We have a cover and I think we have a double page spread too.
Still lots to sort out though.
Must eat.
And then sleep………
Wednesday, 23 April 2008
Tuesday, 22 April 2008
Week two, thread the needle
When I get home I’m really tired, so these blogs are quite hard to get through. I make no apologies for mistakes. I knackered.
I think we had a good day today. We printed out the bulk of our pages so that we could get some opinion and feedback. Which on the whole was positive. It amounted to things like: move that, make that bigger, etc. One area we really did need to improve was the stand firsts and titles. What we’ve got are really hum-drum and boring, just not very sassy really! Hah.
I didn’t think we’d have so much trouble getting these down, but by the end of the day we are really struggling. Rob has become the PUNisher, and James his sidekick the boy PUNder. Hah, that keeps me going all day that does. Not that were trying to write rubbish puns or anything.
Tomorrow we’ve got a lot to be getting on with so were trying to get in a bit earlier than normal. We only really have Wednesday and Thursday to get things sorted as Friday will be taken up with printing and preparing for printing.
Feet don’t explode on me now!
I think we had a good day today. We printed out the bulk of our pages so that we could get some opinion and feedback. Which on the whole was positive. It amounted to things like: move that, make that bigger, etc. One area we really did need to improve was the stand firsts and titles. What we’ve got are really hum-drum and boring, just not very sassy really! Hah.
I didn’t think we’d have so much trouble getting these down, but by the end of the day we are really struggling. Rob has become the PUNisher, and James his sidekick the boy PUNder. Hah, that keeps me going all day that does. Not that were trying to write rubbish puns or anything.
Tomorrow we’ve got a lot to be getting on with so were trying to get in a bit earlier than normal. We only really have Wednesday and Thursday to get things sorted as Friday will be taken up with printing and preparing for printing.
Feet don’t explode on me now!
Monday, 21 April 2008
It hurts to type
Well I had an interesting weekend. I got back to Bournemouth super fast and when I arrived at my flat I saw that my fish tank was a bit on the dirty side. I tried to clean it but I ended up dropping it on the floor. I rescued the fish but I cut my hands up pretty good, so typing is now a bit painful.
We started our second week on high. James made an early start of it and when we all got going we were bashing out lay-outs like pros. We now have lay-outs for every single page, except the front cover and the centre page image. We have seen some good images but nothing we have really settled on.
Our day was going really well. But then we had a bit of a bombshell landed on us. There was an email from Simon back in Bournemouth telling us we had a bunch of work to do when we get back, a presentation for Monday. It’s gonna take a bit of work, what with all the other stuff we have to do, not to mention its not likely were going to do work whilst were in London.
After a bit of a whinge, we settled back into the work. It was after all starting to build up steam. We do have a lot more to do though. Maybe we’ll still get to write more than headlines and stand-firsts but its now not looking as likely.
Oops. I got blood on my keyboard.
We started our second week on high. James made an early start of it and when we all got going we were bashing out lay-outs like pros. We now have lay-outs for every single page, except the front cover and the centre page image. We have seen some good images but nothing we have really settled on.
Our day was going really well. But then we had a bit of a bombshell landed on us. There was an email from Simon back in Bournemouth telling us we had a bunch of work to do when we get back, a presentation for Monday. It’s gonna take a bit of work, what with all the other stuff we have to do, not to mention its not likely were going to do work whilst were in London.
After a bit of a whinge, we settled back into the work. It was after all starting to build up steam. We do have a lot more to do though. Maybe we’ll still get to write more than headlines and stand-firsts but its now not looking as likely.
Oops. I got blood on my keyboard.
Thursday, 17 April 2008
FlapJacks would be nice
Just a small post for today. Things are moving along nicely. We’ve got a few more pages looking good. Not finished mind you, but well on their way to being something I think the Times Magazine would publish.
Toady I have mostly been mostly been cutting out a man and trying to get him on a page, without a background, so that his arms cut into the text. It was an arduous process and in the end I asked the design guy for help. He should me how to it, I thanked him and then promptly forgot everything he said.
I think next week I‘ll do a lot less cutting and design work on photo Shop. Not that I don’t enjoy it. But I would like to get out of the office at some point and try to talk to some people. As Dan always says GOYAKOD! He also says ‘Fact Hunt’ quite a lot. I remembered this today and said it to Amy. She wasn’t impressed. It made all the boys laugh though.
Tomorrow I’d like a flapjack. I work better once I’ve had one.
Toady I have mostly been mostly been cutting out a man and trying to get him on a page, without a background, so that his arms cut into the text. It was an arduous process and in the end I asked the design guy for help. He should me how to it, I thanked him and then promptly forgot everything he said.
I think next week I‘ll do a lot less cutting and design work on photo Shop. Not that I don’t enjoy it. But I would like to get out of the office at some point and try to talk to some people. As Dan always says GOYAKOD! He also says ‘Fact Hunt’ quite a lot. I remembered this today and said it to Amy. She wasn’t impressed. It made all the boys laugh though.
Tomorrow I’d like a flapjack. I work better once I’ve had one.
Wednesday, 16 April 2008
Photo Shop crippled my hand!
Day 3
A somewhat lacklustre afternoon yesterday turned to a renewed passion this morning. We have a very clear idea of what we want and were all working in the same direction. It’s just a shame we can only use one computer for layout. We have others (plus my lap top) but only the one has all the fonts and stuff that were using. It is slowing us down a bit.
We were asked to have the layout of one of our double page features for analysis by twelve o’clock. We finished laying out one of our more troublesome features. I’m not going to tell you what it is though; you’ll have to wait till we get back to the office.
Some good advice later we were steaming ahead and by the end of the day we had another feature looking good and we’d started our third. I’m still feeling confident about doing some writing, maybe next week.
I did spend the most part of the day on a crippling photo shop mission. Cutting out images to be used as those silhouettes. It took a while but I got it done and they do look ace. The feature we did spend a lot of time on really does look the part.
If we can get them all looking that good (or better) we’ll have one sweet looking supplement by the end of the two weeks.
A somewhat lacklustre afternoon yesterday turned to a renewed passion this morning. We have a very clear idea of what we want and were all working in the same direction. It’s just a shame we can only use one computer for layout. We have others (plus my lap top) but only the one has all the fonts and stuff that were using. It is slowing us down a bit.
We were asked to have the layout of one of our double page features for analysis by twelve o’clock. We finished laying out one of our more troublesome features. I’m not going to tell you what it is though; you’ll have to wait till we get back to the office.
Some good advice later we were steaming ahead and by the end of the day we had another feature looking good and we’d started our third. I’m still feeling confident about doing some writing, maybe next week.
I did spend the most part of the day on a crippling photo shop mission. Cutting out images to be used as those silhouettes. It took a while but I got it done and they do look ace. The feature we did spend a lot of time on really does look the part.
If we can get them all looking that good (or better) we’ll have one sweet looking supplement by the end of the two weeks.
Tuesday, 15 April 2008
Day 2
After our swift and productive first day we settled in to bit more of a routine today. We were shown the databases and how to attain photos from any publication, ever! Well, any photo from the last couple months, but it’s still impressive.
We began the day by creating a list of deadlines we should hit by the end of the week. Targets to keep us on track, otherwise we’d probably just mill around for a few days and then panic like mad at the end of the week.
We finalised our features and content. I’m still ambitious enough to think that I’d like to try and write at least some of the content. Evan if it’s just a bit. Layout and the ‘theme’ of our supplement were high on our agenda today. The ‘theme’ is important as it will frame our content and run through unifying everything.
Colour became a bit of a debate. Green, blue or something in-between? As were focusing on fitness and health clean crisp colours are a must but it’s becoming hard to decide what looks best.
Finding images is a bit of a pain. I spent the afternoon using photoshop while the others scoured the databases. My time was spent slowly looking for images of runners and a skyline of London. Both of which I turned into silhouettes. It took ages. But then again I suppose a lot of this stuff is gonna be pretty time consuming.
Maybe I’ll get faster with time. See how many I can do in an hour and then try and break that record!
Sigh.
We began the day by creating a list of deadlines we should hit by the end of the week. Targets to keep us on track, otherwise we’d probably just mill around for a few days and then panic like mad at the end of the week.
We finalised our features and content. I’m still ambitious enough to think that I’d like to try and write at least some of the content. Evan if it’s just a bit. Layout and the ‘theme’ of our supplement were high on our agenda today. The ‘theme’ is important as it will frame our content and run through unifying everything.
Colour became a bit of a debate. Green, blue or something in-between? As were focusing on fitness and health clean crisp colours are a must but it’s becoming hard to decide what looks best.
Finding images is a bit of a pain. I spent the afternoon using photoshop while the others scoured the databases. My time was spent slowly looking for images of runners and a skyline of London. Both of which I turned into silhouettes. It took ages. But then again I suppose a lot of this stuff is gonna be pretty time consuming.
Maybe I’ll get faster with time. See how many I can do in an hour and then try and break that record!
Sigh.
Monday, 14 April 2008
What do you mean 10 o'clock?
Hooray the time has finally come. After heading down to London and to my mate Dan’s place I’m finally in the big city. Ooh the lights. It’s not like this in Wales! Staying at Dan’s in hindsight might not have been the best move. We met in a pub and decided to celebrate the beginning of the two weeks with a couple of pints, only that’s not really in Dan’s vocabulary.
So walking out of the tube to meet James’ smiling chipper face made me feel a bit sick. But I survived, a coffee and sandwich and I’m ready to go. We arrived as specified by PJ, 11 o’clock. But to our dismay the receptionist informed us that we had been expected at ten. Oops. Never mind eh PJ?
It didn’t seem to matter anyway. We were shown around and given our nifty security tags that to my delight also doubles up as money, which you can top-up phone style. Very exciting.
After hearing reports that our ideas might get shot down in spectacular fashion, from all accounts of the previous group. It was with slightly nervous voices that we presented our ideas. Which, got promptly shot down. It was pointed out that none of the ideas really had legs. We were shown the door and asked to prepare and flesh out some better ideas.
Right. To the vaults we went to sift through the back catalogues for inspiration. We came up with a few more ideas and fleshed out the others and went back feeling more confidence.
To my surprise our second idea wasn’t greeted with absolute indifference, which made me feel pretty good. So we proceeded. Figured out what our features would be, and then spent about an hour twiddling our thumbs waiting for someone to help us print out our work.
All in all not a bad day. We have a good idea, the possibility of some wicked images and a good direction to head in. The next two weeks are looking pretty promising.
So walking out of the tube to meet James’ smiling chipper face made me feel a bit sick. But I survived, a coffee and sandwich and I’m ready to go. We arrived as specified by PJ, 11 o’clock. But to our dismay the receptionist informed us that we had been expected at ten. Oops. Never mind eh PJ?
It didn’t seem to matter anyway. We were shown around and given our nifty security tags that to my delight also doubles up as money, which you can top-up phone style. Very exciting.
After hearing reports that our ideas might get shot down in spectacular fashion, from all accounts of the previous group. It was with slightly nervous voices that we presented our ideas. Which, got promptly shot down. It was pointed out that none of the ideas really had legs. We were shown the door and asked to prepare and flesh out some better ideas.
Right. To the vaults we went to sift through the back catalogues for inspiration. We came up with a few more ideas and fleshed out the others and went back feeling more confidence.
To my surprise our second idea wasn’t greeted with absolute indifference, which made me feel pretty good. So we proceeded. Figured out what our features would be, and then spent about an hour twiddling our thumbs waiting for someone to help us print out our work.
All in all not a bad day. We have a good idea, the possibility of some wicked images and a good direction to head in. The next two weeks are looking pretty promising.
Tuesday, 8 April 2008
Work experience but a few days away.......
This is my first post of what will become a running commentary of my experience at a national newspaper. I will be spending two weeks trying to get myself noticed in the big bad city of London. I'm pretty excited about spending some time in the city but I'm under no illusions about how hard I have to work. It should be fun, I hope.
In this blog I will keep you updated on all my progress, good and bad. I will try to remain positive throughout my time but I'm not making any promises. I have a lot of friends in London and if the going gets tough I might be dragged 'out' to forget my worries, well I am attempting to be a journalist, I should experience everything that goes on!
Keep your ears to the ground, and I'll apologise in advance if the language here gets a bit blue.
In this blog I will keep you updated on all my progress, good and bad. I will try to remain positive throughout my time but I'm not making any promises. I have a lot of friends in London and if the going gets tough I might be dragged 'out' to forget my worries, well I am attempting to be a journalist, I should experience everything that goes on!
Keep your ears to the ground, and I'll apologise in advance if the language here gets a bit blue.
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