All for YOU

During the summer of 2009 I spent a few weeks at the offices of YOU magazine, subbing pages for the print magazine and (what was fast becoming) the Mail's much lauded website (mostly by lifting text and images from the magazine, cutting back where required and publishing via an intricate and somewhat antiquated CMS).

Starting off as an intern in July, I eventually gained a few weekday shifts covering staff absences. Printouts of pages I edited still exist among the paper-based detritus scattered around my spare bedroom. Below is a (very small) sample of that material.

Click the thumbnails to zoom on an image.

A lighthearted piece analysing the body language of celebrities. This draft shows my proofing marks. The final draft submitted for publication in the August 23rd 2009 issue of YOU.

An example of an exercise in fact checking: the yellow highlights indicate facts identified and verified by me. I spotted a time-sensitive inaccuracy near the top of the body text.

Riddle me this, riddle me that ... Who's afraid of the big, bad bat?

So I managed to get a commission off the back of my solo effort at attracting the attention of a video games magazine for kids. Not bad, eh?

The first fruit of my labour is this review of Batman: The Brave and the Bold, due for release at the end of the summer school holidays. 

Click the mock layout below to check out the review. Be aware that it is a large download. Your browser may take some time to retrieve the file. Try right-clicking and choosing 'Save as..' in order to track its progress.

 

The finished product is set to appear in Megaton issue 6 this week (available to buy in WH Smith and all good newsagents!)

If you want to know what all the fuss is about, visit the Megaton website to get a feel for the format and their attempts to communicate to a younger audience.

Those of you who want to know more about Megaton's recent origins and the philosophy of the man behind the entire project should check out this interview. 

To find out about my initial encounter with Megaton, take a gander at my previous posting.

Game, 'net and a perfect match for kiddywinks

A British video game magazine aimed at 8 - 12 year olds had a simultaneous print / web launch in March 2010. Called Megaton, the title is a breath of fresh air for the industry. Instead of games reviewed by hardcore gaming addicts for hardcore gamers, the idea is that appropriate age-rated games are presented to a junior audience in a manner appropriate to that audience: lots of pictures, few complicated tracts of text and a simple perspective on what a gaming review should be for children (i.e. a basic overview of how the game works, not how witty the writer can be ... or how many epithets they can spit in time to a flash video.)

I decided to design and write a sample review, in the style of Megaton, with the intention of submitting it to the editorial team as an advert for work. The picture above is a compressed jpeg (hence the cruddy resolution) exported from the final page of my review, which I put together using QuarkXPress 8. You can view the entire piece in all its glory by clicking on the image.

Note: Clicking on the image will launch the embedded PDF reader in your browser. In Google Chrome it can appear as though the browser is doing nothing while the file is downloaded ... which weighs in at 57 Megs. You'll get a better sense of the download's progress by right-clicking the image and using 'save as...'

If you have time, please support Megaton by visiting their site, or buying the magazine (if you live in the UK) - especially if you're a gaming parent. 

Sub-editing with Johnston Press

Below are scans from A3 masters made during a week's internship with Johnston Press in Horsham. Due to the size of the pages in comparison to my scanner, I've had to divide each page in half. What I was responsible for on each page is indicated by handwritten notes.

Microsoft closes the book on Encarta

Absolute Gadget - March 31st 2009

Click the linking image above to view the copy.