The notebook of the New Product Development team at IPC Media. What we’re thinking, what we’re looking at, who we’re talking to…
drawing of cherries
How do you tell when you’ve become set in your creative direction? By this I mean the processes, skills, disciplines and behaviour that you employ to be creative. For example wireframe > look and feel > prototype > delivery. These may be some of the creative processes a web designer may use to see a web development project through from beginning to end. Read the rest of this entry »
There’s a top tussle going on today between Apple and the publishers of the music they offer for sale on iTunes.
Here’s what Eliiot Van Buskirk wrote on Wired about it:
“Apple have threatened to close down the iTunes music store if an obscure three-person board appointed by the Librarian of Congress increase the royalties paid to publishers and songwriters by six cents per song.
“The Copyright Royalty Board is scheduled to hand down its decision on these rates by Thursday. As part of their general muscle-flexing of late, music publishers asked the board to increase the royalties paid to publishers and songwriters for the sale of digital downloads from 9 cents to 15 cents per song. Read the rest of this entry »
The notion of ‘push’ is when you push your content towards an audience who may or may not be aware of its existence. In a ‘pull’ environment the consumer pulls their content towards themselves because they are interested in it. Read the rest of this entry »
Why is WordPress such a powerful tool? It was first released in May 2003 and has seen constant improvements resulting in it being on 2.6 since July 2008. It has become more and more relevant to a publishing company as the WordPress software has developed and is now able to support ‘magazine‘ themes. This has led to a buzz around WordPress now being called a CMS (content management system) as opposed to just a blogging tool. A number of agencies have sprung up offering ‘premium’ themes that offer a wide range of functionality and, through enhanced admin panels, the editor has a truly flexible publishing platform. Currently WyntonMagazine is catching my attention as it’s a free theme. But some tasty looking premium themes are Revolution and Mimbo. Read the rest of this entry »
Inadvisable as it may seem in these tough trading times to heed ancient wisdoms unchallenged, there’s at least one hand-me-down that still appears to be worth the metaphorical tablets of stone it was chiselled on.
I’m thinking of the three golden rules of cover image as practised to the letter by Ignite and, for all I know, several other editorial departments.
Simply, this dictum states that, in order for a front cover to work most effectively, the cover image must be of:
1. The right subject
2. The right image of said subject
3. And that the right image of the right subject should be published at the right time.
The saying goes that three out of three – right subject, right pic, right time - you’re on a winner; two out of three, you’re on reasonably safe ground, one out of three you’re barking up the wrong tree and zero out of three, you should probably be sacked. Read the rest of this entry »
As a web designer I often wonder what other web designers get up to all day. So I thought the least I could do is share a day with my colleagues. To the best of my knowledge there are just under ten of us at IPC. In no particular order myself, Nadeem Akhtar, Andrew McManus, Steve Lambert, Sam Scott, Rob Trikilis, Ed Walker, Kieran Delaney, and Justin McCormack. If I have missed any one out apologies. A month ago , I recorded a day in the life of Charlie Francis…. Read the rest of this entry »
It’s a dangerous job, working in NPD.
You’re always on your guard against the temptation to take what you’ve learned from researching one brand and bring it to bear upon another. You don’t want to discover that the Womans’ Weekly reader is drawn, trancelike, to all things pink only to find yourself trying to import it into the colour palette of Golf Monthly. That way disaster will surely lie.
On the other hand, the privilege of working across so many brands in so many areas can lead to unearthing an emerging trend in reader/user habits or preferences which working on solely one brand might not reveal.
Recently one such trend to surface alongside the crucial need to give VFM (value for money) in our competitive markets is the issue of believability. Read the rest of this entry »
Take a close look at this recent cover of Parents magazine. We spend a lot of time here debating whether the logo should go in front or behind the subject. However, this particular example makes an entirely different sort of point. Find more examples of failure in communication at
Dan Lyons came to the Editors’ Conference and gave a wonderful, witty presentation. We were unable to record it, but here’s one he did earlier.
Earlier today we interviewed a few of the great and the good, and heres what they had to say…