Buzz on the Streets

Wednesday (1st May) saw the launch of Buzz magazine 2013. After 12 long weeks of blood, sweat and tears (literally) the publishing and journalist students of Napier were able to say the job was done. It was a lovely, sunny night and we all had a good time, celebrating all our hard work.

To be honest, I don't think any of us ever thought we would reach this point. We faced so many problems in producing this magazine; at times it felt as if we were cursed! Buzz was a joint project between the journalist and publishing students and we didn't always see eye-to-eye. Not to mention there were a lot of last minute changes to be made that resulted in a considerable amount of stress and frayed tempers on all sides.

But I think it was all worth it in the end. I'm really happy with how the magazine looks overall. The cover is bright and colourful and as good as any professional magazine cover. The contents page is cool and the cover story looks amazing. I designed two spreads for the magazine - the Brew Lab one and the picnic one. Considering that before October I had never touched InDesign, they're not too shabby. The picnic hamper spread was a particularly hard one to bring to life, but it's good to be tested creatively.

Enjoying the launch

The whole project has taught me a lot - from design skills, to working with others, and, most importantly, how to stay calm under extreme pressure. It was at times frustrating and at times fun, and it's definitely an experience I'm glad to have had. I've never done anything like this before and I didn't expect to enjoy it so much. I would seriously consider working in magazine design in the future.

Those of you who live in Edinburgh, look out for Buzz in cafes, bars, hotels and select shops all over the city. And don't forget to check out www.buzzmag.org/ for more stories and reviews of the latest films and gigs.

So You Want to Work in Publishing?

Week six of my second trimester is almost over (yes, really!), so now seems like the time for some good old reflection. Before I started my MSc Publishing course I knew we would be required to participate in 'live projects', producing a book and a magazine. During our first trimester our work was all geared to providing us with the skills needed to complete these projects. The individual proposals we all worked on for the book live project had me imagining an exciting collaboration to produce a beautiful, interesting book. There were so many good ideas and I couldn't wait to get started on it.

The reality, as is so often the case, has been somewhat different.