The document outlines 10 steps for creating powerful publications including: 1) practical planning with objectives and audience in mind, 2) partnering internally and externally for project management, 3) compelling content featuring themes, stories, experts and alumni, 4) using potent pictures with few large high quality images, 5) an effective page layout with white space and special effects, 6) painstaking proofreading and editing, 7) prudent printing within budget, 8) positive scheduling and approval processes, and 9) reusing content on the web and for special purposes before 10) regularly reviewing and improving for ongoing success.
How do you get from “good” to “great”? How to you get the most from your budget? How do you juggle it all? Most colleges have good publications. Not always that way. But the challenge is going from good to great. Editing a publication is like conducting a symphony. You have to manage a lot of moving parts at the same time, and any one section can throw off the entire process.
Branding/positioning of the college – traditional? Contemporary? Cutting edge? Objectives – overall magazine and individual magazine Audience – Alumni? Students? Faculty? The message – mission. theme, design, photos, story selection, everything conveys.
Internal -- Development, Alumni Relations, Admissions, Student Affairs. You may consider an editorial board of key stockholders. External -- Freelancers designers, photographers, writers, mailing services, shipping. Now with the internet, you can hire people anywhere in the world – you aren’t restricted to working with local people. LinkedIn, ifreelancer.com, elance.com. How much to outsource vs. what to do in-house? Often less expensive to outsource than to have dedicated employees. Consider project management systems – MicrosoftProject, BaseCamp (online subscription service), Google Docs (free) – helps keep track of all the moving parts.
Pick a theme (Denison cover – Risk and Responsibility: honors emergency workers, saving the Florida Everglades, stem cell research, honor code) Compelling Stories -- – go for the emotion; nostalgia, pride, inspiration, humor, excitement, curiosity, adversity Show off your people as experts (faculty, alums, students) Students – Help alums see themselves in students; students see themselves in alums
Alumni News – usually most read part of magazine. Mine your alumni records for alums with interesting jobs & achievements. Contact, get great photos. Showing your alums being successful raises the value of all alums’ degrees. Letters from the president – passe. Turn into dynamic story with byline or column. Show casual or acton pic and great headline. Do something creative with boilerplate (credits) and content. Crisp, clear writing. The only purpose for a sentence is to drive you to read the next. You are competing for the reader’s time, and it better be compelling, or they won’t read it. People stories not program stories. Shorter vs. longer. Fewer vs. more. Doing fewer stories gives you the opp to do more creative layouts. Lots of competition for space – pick the best stories, don’t try to use everything that you can. Headlines, subheads, call-out boxes and cutlines most important. Big, bold, witty. This is where the magic is. Some people only read this! This gives you the impression that you’re looking for.
Read from page.
Gone Fission
Alum news
Alum news. Entire issue like this. Miami Dade College Magazine
Rather than president’s letter. Miami Dade College.
Credits, content- The Hill – McDaniel College
Contents made interesting.
Don’t use photos to fill space. They should help tell the story - Not an afterthought. Plan from beginning. We are visual learners. More important than ever – sometimes people will only look at the pictures and headlines. Big splashy spreads for features, especially the title pages. Photos must be top-notch, at least 300 dpi. Sometimes can res up a bit, but don’t take a bad photo and expect it to look better in print. Larger, fewer photos vs. more, smaller. If you need to use a lot of small photos, find a way to tie them together graphically. Show people in action, not posed in groups – usually no more than 3-4 -- most of the time. (p 25 Dartmouth – makes a statement about graduation and is used like an art element). Casual shots better than portraits. Portraits do not show personality.
Always write great cutlines. The cutlines should not only ID people in the shot, but should add to the information – not repeat it. Try to save a fact or two for the cutline. Avoid the predictable: fig leaf shots, ground breakings, check passings, telephone in the ear, person working on computer, people sitting around board room table. Use creative angles – extremely high, extremely low, hold camera crooked It’s OK to use stock photos – selectively. Consider using illustrations or strong graphics where appropriate If you are a color pub, use b&w photos for interest; use two-color printing or duotones. Likewise, if your pub is two color, you may want to use a color photo on cover or on center spread.
Example of spread with graphic.
Stock photo.
Stock photo. (Note headline)
Illustration.
Casual vs. portrait. Much more interesting.
Great, two page spread. Dartmouth, “Big Picture”
Dartmouth
Dartmouth – graduation. Effective use of group shot – like a graphic.
Angled shot – makes more interesting.
Unusual technique/photo illustration.
Using old b&w photos.
Fisheye lens.
Read cutline.
Figleaf – boring group shot
Check passing and hand-shaking
Surprise me - Establish a consistent foundational look with type, design elements; then break the rules to surprise the reader and create eye candy. Judicious use of alternate type fonts, boxes, rules, etc. (Dartmouth p 50) Two-page spreads for title pages with special type treatments and large photos (MDC – 37); “Waste” space with photos – Make a statement. Run photos off the edges in creative ways (Den – 6-7) White space (The Hill p 12-13; 18-19), heavy ledding (spacing); oversized type (The Hill p. 15) Ghosting – way to vary design (The Chronicle p. 11, 13 – winter 08; 19 summer 07) Bleeds give a feeling of expansion and openness, even though it doesn’t add that much space – like knocking down walls in your house. (Den. P. 5 “dead space” at bottom) Special effects - die cuts (MDC special issue), embossing, fold-outs, inserts (CDs), etc. as budget allows to meet desired objectives. You can’t do it all, but these techniques, applied well, creates interest.
2-page spread, huge type
again
Use of graphics, photos, white space, large heads
White space, lots of leading, creative use of photo and an object
Layout of photos on background, bleeds, photos
Die cut, fold out.
“Wasted space” . And example when cropping the dead space would have been a mistake.
Shows both a graphic and a very creative way to do a headline. Story on honor code. This is one side of the title page for story – raising hand to take the pledge.
Opposite side of that page. Palm of hand shows notes scribbled on hand.
Style – pick one – whether it’s AP, Chicago or your own, just be consistent. If you capitalize titles for example, do it consistently. Print out to proof Do it when you are fresh Get someone else who hasn’t worked on the mag to also proof
Budget – 2-color, 4-color, paper, quantity, full bleed, inserts. Put it out for bid and get the winners to guarantee the price for a period of time – 12-24 months – you’ll get a better deal. Save in correct format. Provide printer a pdf with embedded files, photos, fonts. Paper – look at different paper. Doesn’t have to be glossy – there is high quality text paper with smooth finish that can add interest. Print offshore? Maybe – but find a printing rep who understands the system and can guide your project there.
Make and circulate a schedule and get it signed off in the beginning. Make sure players know that if they miss the target dates, it will move the publication date back. Build extra days into the schedule. If you must get multiple approvals, get them on the same copy, with the final decision-maker seeing the pub last. Get each person to write in different color. (If doing offline). If you have a project management system, you can manage this much more easily by granting authorship and you can see each person’s changes.
Put it on your web site, preferably in html, not pdf. People don’t like reading things, especially long magazines, as a pdf. And pdfs are not searchable by search engines and bots. Use components for other purposes. Brochures, promoting events – fliers, posters
How will you measure success? Build it into the magazine. Alumni response cards, email, contests – makes interactive. Alumni Haiku (The Hill 18-19); trivia contest (The Hill, p. 56). Reader surveys – can be done online (you have email addresses -- drawings for iPod, college swag), phone surveys – can be incorporated into phonathon w/ students. Internal review process. After you’re done, get the gang together and grade yourself. Consider what you can streamline in the process, Start planning for next issue.
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