London College of Communication blog

London College of Communication (LCC) MA Publishing graduate Paula Merlo has been busy helping launch celebrity gossip magazine ‘Glamour’ in Brazil.

Paula, who graduated in 2011, has been assigned editor of the magazine’s ‘Do’s and Don’ts’ feature as well as working on features about sex, relationships, health and careers.

Speaking of her time at LCC, Paula enthuses:

“Studying an MA in Publishing at LCC has played an essential part in getting me to where I am today. The MA helped me to mature my ideas and understand the scope of cross-media, multi-platform publishing, social media and online content; all of which we debated at length in class.”

Paula made the most of her time studying in London, interning at beauty brand ‘Eyeko’ and Luxure Magazine. She also contributed regularly to Vogue Brazil as their London correspondent, where she had worked previously for five years.

Paula’s time at LCC culminated with the production of ‘Yuppie’, a magazine she worked on with fellow students as a major MA practice project, of which she says:

“Producing Yuppie really helped me to get the attention of editors when seeking job interviews in London. Potential employers saw how well crafted Yuppie was, with real and relevant content, and immediately responded to it. I still receive emails from people who want to contribute to the magazine and website!”

Glamour Brazil officially launch in April 2012, immediately receiving a circulation of over 200,000 copies.

Look out for Paula as the Glamour Brazil team let their hair down after a busy day in the office:

London College of Communication (LCC) MA Publishing student Gabriela Sanchez-Curiel is to showcase her new international publishing enterprise at The London Book Fair on Wednesday 18 April at 2.30pm in the Thames Room.

The London Book Fair

She is one of eight leading innovators from around the globe who will present at the Innovation Translated: A Global Snapshot of Today’s Publishing Innovators seminar. Each will showcase an idea, project or publication that demonstrates how they are innovating in their national markets.

Sanchez-Curiel is a Mexican graphic designer and new publisher. She has twelve years of industry experience, five of which spent in the magazine publishing sector, and most recently at Times Warner Inc. in Mexico City. While studying for her Masters at LCC she founded Global Transmedia Publishing. Her business model is based on offering a range of creative publishing services to clients globally who do not have the expertise or skills to realize their objectives, in either print or digital media, or both.

The London Book Fair is the leading trade exhibition for rights negotiation and the sales and distribution of content across print, audio, TV, film and digital channels. The three day event takes place at London’s Earls Court from Monday 16 – Wednesday 18 April. Admission is free if you register online as ‘student’ status. £30 saving!

Carolyn Jones, a student from the MA Publishing course at London College of Communication (LCC), has been awarded the Macmillan Student Achievement Award. The prize, a cheque of £750, was presented by Macmillan’s Deputy Chairman, Mike Barnard, at the student-led Publishing Innovation Conference held at the College on 9th March 2012.

Carolyn Jones receiving award from Mike Barnard of Macmillan

The annual prize is awarded to the student who achieves the highest overall grade on the MA Publishing course.  During the course she and fellow students created Yuppie, a self-published digital and print magazine covering arts, culture, current affairs and fashion. The magazine has now launched two issues with Carolyn at the helm as the creative director. Her high scoring thesis – A Digital Approach to Brand Management within the Luxury Magazine Market – examined the importance of building relationships with readers through digital platforms.

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On Thursday 8th March London College of Communication (LCC) is hosting iGeneration, the eighth annual Publishing Innovation Conference by MA Publishing students, sponsored by Macmillan. The conference will address the rise of self-publishing and the debates it is inspiring within the industry. The annual Student Achievement Prize, a cheque of £500, will be presented at the conference by Anthony Forbes Watson, managing director of Pan Macmillan Publishers.

Two panels, made up of both industry speakers and self-publishers, including writers, photographers and bloggers will discuss how self-publishing is affecting the traditional self-publishing model. Confirmed speakers include: Jeremy Leslie creative director at magCulture, Alison Baverstock, author of The Naked Author: Guide to Self-Publishing, Joanna Penn from The Creative Penn and Ewan Morrison, author, whose recent article in the Guardian tracks the self-epublishing bubble.

Desmond O’Rourke, LCC MA Publishing course director, says: “The theme for the conference project this year really resonates with the turmoil and challenges going on within the industry. With rapid e-reader and digital tablet adoption, where anyone can be a publisher, roles are blurring between amateur and professional. This conference will give insights into these challenges for writers, creative content producers, publishing professionals and students alike.”

iGeneration has been organised as part of the MA Publishing professional practice module by students: Claire Muirhead, Megan Phillips, Stine Gjevnøe Sørensen, Victor Egenti, Katie Jones and Hennal Valand.

The conference is free and takes place in the Podium Lecture Theatre at London College of Communication on Thursday the 8th March from 4 – 8pm.

Book your place at the conference at www.publishinginnovation.com

Join in the debate via Twitter: @iGeneration2012 or on Facebook: Publishing Innovation Conference 2012

LCC lecturer Paul Bailey’s commissioned publication ‘A Place is a Space we Give Meaning‘ which is an exploration of the content of folio issue zero has recently been published.

Bailey, a lecturer on FdA/BA Design for Graphic Communication says: “The magazine folio seeks to operate as an exhibition space on paper, presenting the work of several artists per issue. This book examines the challenge of representation and how we begin to experience sculptural, three-dimensional, time-based and de-materialised work in a perceived two-dimensional environment (the printed page).”

A joint interview on the book, with the editors of folio and Paul Bailey, can be found via Imperica magazine. You can view more work from Paul Bailey on his website.

Wired magazine is announced as the best digital magazine of the year at the 2011 Digital Magazine Awards held at London College of Communication on 14 December.

Other winners announced included British Vogue in the fashion magazine category and The New Yorker in the news and business category.

The awards’ showcase event hosted at LCC, in collaboration with the MA Publishing course, can be viewed at their website.

LCC Futures Conference audience

Last week (2 – 4 November) LCC hosted its 12th annual Digital Media Futures Conference, where students and leaders in digital media came together to investigate new trends in technology and design.

The three-day event was attended by students from the College’s digital media, games design, publishing, advertising and print media courses, as well as a group of 25 students from Gobelins in Paris, who have been sending a group to this event for the past nine years.

Over the three days there were 23 presentations from representatives of key companies including, Penguin, Dorling Kindersley, JWT, Leo Burnnett, Qmuli and Ditto.tv. There were also talks from games consultant James Wallis (pictured below) and Michael Nutley, director of New Media Age.

James Wallis - Director of games consultancy, 'Spaaace'

At the conference there were some incredible new technologies demonstrated and predictions made about what to look out for. Print on Demand (POD) is now becoming a major industry, Augmented Reality is being used to create some incredible products, Gamification is a growing area and the Cloud seems to be where everyone is going. However many speakers also warned of difficulties with some new technologies and that many are not fully defined or standardised.

Martin Percy - Webby winner/ multiple Emmy and BAFTA nominee

LCC Head of Digital Media, Chris Linford, said: “All the presenters were impressed with the high quality of LCC students and some said they employ no one except LCC digital media and games students because they have the ability and vision to work on new developments across a range of technologies. Ditto.tv has even invited all the students to Open Studio events.”

“We seem to be at the beginning of an exciting time for digital media and games as many technologies are now maturing, which creates ever more opportunities,” says Linford.

The presentations were broadcast live over the web and can still be viewed on the LCC website via Livestream.

LCC’s MA Publishing course is hosting the talk: Design and Publish: the Future on iPad with Dan Logan, Technical Product Manager at Quark. Logan, coming over from the Unites States, will talk to LCC students about iPad publishing in the Main Lecture Theatre on Thursday 27 October from 2 until 3pm.

The lecture will emphasize the core design process, the ease of ‘enrichment’, the ease of publishing to the iPad, and how much (or rather how little) it costs to get QXP/App Studio publications onto the App Store – especially for education users.

Quark recently won the Publishing Product of the Year award for QuarkXPress with App Studio at the MacUser Awards event.  App Studio is the iPad part of Quark’s publishing process and produced QuarkXPress 9.1 which, according to the industry, provides people with the easiest, most creatively accessible, and most affordable way to design and publish to the iPad.

Arts London News is produced within LCC’s Faculty of Media. During term-time over 100 students of the BA Journalism course from years 2 and 3 and FdA Journalism second year students are involved in the making of the paper. Contributors include journalists, photojournalists and sports journalists.

Print Editor Petter Lundgren says: “The newspaper is a weekly publication, so we start every next issue straight after printing the previous one. Although on much content we work from two weeks in advance for each issue. We target 15,000 Arts students, so a lot of readers.”

At the moment, Journalism students are working on the first issue of this term which is planned to go live on 4 November. About 10,000 papers are printed and they are circulated within all UAL Colleges, Student Union bars and a few local businesses around the campuses.

More information about Arts London News can be found on their website.

MA Publishing students held their Publishing Challenge event at The Book Club in Shoreditch on 20 July 2011.

The event exhibited student’s self- published books and magazine titles and presentations and discussions were available throughout the night.

Speaking about the event Course Director, Desmond O’Rourke said:

“The New Publishers 2011 Show clearly demonstrated the  creativity and publishing skills of our talented MA publishing students. The show was excellent, and I hope the course will host it annually in the future.”

Work by London College of Communication (LCC) guest exhibitors and alumni were on show and an auction for the student published book ABC also took place. The book raised £75 on the night for the British Red Cross.