The shortlist is out, and CMYK Design is nominated in five categories of the PPA Scotland Awards to be announced on 26 November at Dynamic Earth in Edinburgh.
FYi is up for best magazine design in the business & professional category
Scotland Outdoors is a contender for best magazine design in the consumer area
Our work on Scotland in Trust magazine is being recognised in the Best small publisher category and also as best membership magazine
Jostling for best customer magazine is our wee baby aurora – launched in the teeth of the recession, but still bringing in the advertising, and looking fab. But we would say that wouldn’t we.
Obviously, chuffed to bits to be recognised for all our efforts over the past year.
Artwork for the Obstinate Donkey circa 1940
Plaque at the Courier Building in Dundee
As members of PPA Scotland we have occasional meetings where we discuss the future of publishing in Scotland and all that. Yesterday’s meeting had an extra gloss however, as the venue was the hallowed DC Thomson offices in Dundee. The building itself reminded me of the Scotsman offices in North Bridge, Edinburgh – lots of floors, tiny offices, wood panelling, labyrinth-like corridors and even little fireplaces in some rooms!
Continue reading ‘PPA Scotland visit to DC Thomson in Dundee’
Kids mag Anorak is inviting student submissions for the cover of a special edition of their magazine.
For more details visit the Anorak website
Our new inflight magazine, aurora, for Highland Airways, went to press on Friday. Of course I couldn’t miss a trip to our printers, Scotprint, who are based in Haddington.
All went really well, with 16 to view printed both sides – so 32 pages passed in one fell swoop! I remember the days when I used to pass every section of Caledonia magazine, but it was only 8 pages to view, single sided. You can imagine how long that took.
Anyway, we are due to get early copies on Wednesday, so will update this post then.
PPA Scotland had a meeting on Thursday 26 March at the Scottish Parliament with a number of MSPs present. The object was to lobby MSPs and make them aware of the problems we small publishers face. I spoke about the complicated procedures inherent in tendering for the public sector, Paul Begley from 55 North talked about the red tape that small businesses have to put up with, and Tom Lovering from PSP Publishing told MSPs about the difficulties we face when trying to get magazines onto the shelves in stores like WH Smith.
Continue reading ‘PPA Scotland at the Parliament’
A new exhibition which I haven’t seen but promises to be interesting for the covers of some of the magazines alone, is on in London. From the very first women’s magazine back in 1693, right up to the present day, and everything in between – the concept really took shape in the 1870s, with problem pages appearing along with ways to “make your life easier everyday”.
Between the Covers: Women’s Magazines and their Readers is at the Women’s Library, London EC1 until 1 April 2009.
I’m happy to say I was in attendance for last night’s Long Lunch talk from Fernando Gutiérrez at the Edinburgh College of Art. These talks are a great source of inspiration and I’m happy to see that the organisers have returned with vigour after a bit of a quiet period. For the price of a ticket, they are a real bargain and I just can’t recommend them enough.
Gutiérrez himself has had an interesting career and, although not a captivating speaker, he warmed as time went by and I was very taken with his work at El Pais which went quite against the grain at the time. It was also good to hear him talk about his time at Pentagram which sounded like a very demanding place to be. A massive weight of expectation was placed on all members and seemingly the disproportionate remuneration available in one discipline over another – regardless of creative input – loitered as something of a divisive spectre. The reward, of course, was to be part of a community of creatives, all highly driven and able to help each other generate and develop ideas through healthy debate. It’s the sort of thing that anyone with a love of the creative process would dream of doing in their lifetime.
There were a good number of questions from the audience at the end and he responded well to these – in fact I was left wondering if an interview format might have extacted more from him.
The next speaker will be Morag Myerscough at the end of November and I for one, will be present – and I’ll make sure I get a poster next time as well!
For the second year running now, we’ve been shortlisted for “Best Magazine Produced by a Small Publishing Company” Award. Phew, that’s a mouthful. It is for our work on Scotland in Trust magazine. Anyway, we are all proud and privileged to be nominated, and we will find out if we are successful at the annual PPA Scotland Awards night in Glasgow at the end of November. Fingers crossed!
With all the spleen-venting over what Joe and Jane Bloggs chose to vote the best magazine cover ever (it was a Radio Times cover, if you missed it), it would be easy to forget that the survey forms part of Magazine Week 2008. The event, organised by the PPA, aims to promote magazines to the general public and includes a number of special promotions including a two for one offer on mags at Borders.
For more information on Magazine Week, what’s on offer and who’s participating, visit the official website at www.magazineweek.net
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