Session Work
This was the first week without taught content to be considered, instead, the group began pitching story ideas for the upcoming magazine. For this, I pitched four story ideas:
- A look at the open mic-night scene in York
- Food wastage by companies in York and surrounding areas
- Recycling statistics and how paper is recycled in Yorkshire
- A comparative of MP profiles against youth politicians in Yorkshire
The rest of the day was then spent looking at how these stories could be followed up and developed, I looked into the lack of youth politicians in the Yorkshire area and could not find any particular reason for this.
I also looked at the possibility of following up on the rest of the stories. This work required me to look into the history of youth voting in Yorkshire, at the time there was no youth representative listed for the York area, and showed me that if I were to follow up on it, the story would instead be aimed at the issue of youth involvement in politics: is there enough?
For the second story, more research is required, mainly because facts and figures would have to be present to bring the piece together. This would mean that more information from places like the Waste and Resources Action Program, an organisation that works with governments to decrease the levels of waste that companies and individuals produce. I am interested to discover what the levels are for individual businesses in terms of waste and if there is a reason for getting rid of food rather than distributing it to the needy other than it being industry practice if that is the case.
In order to follow up on the open mic story, I have decided to follow up by getting a look at the open mic nights that are run regularly in pubs and bars, by inquiring with contacts within the scene. I have organised to go to one at the Evil Eye bar next week.
Further to this, we used the Indesign session to create a series of ideas for the general layout of the interior of the publication. This involved looking at different examples of spreads from magazines and using them as inspiration to create our own productions, I feel that this showed that my skills in the use of Indesign have increased to a good level and understanding of the software:
Overall, I could have completed more research than I have so far, but this is down to a mixture of time constraint issues thanks to outside and university commitments; as well as this I have perhaps picked too many stories to go forward with and therefore should more effectively narrow down the work that I wish to do. I also need to decide whether or not I intend to write the editors letter or give that to a lead from a really strong story that features in the publication.
I am sure that my layout for the magazine will evolve, not only as I become more proficient with software, but also as I narrow down which story idea I want to follow up on. For example, a piece looking at the local music scene and another looking at youth politics will need completely different thematic atmospheres. Therefore, I do not want to get too far with my design until I have more concrete foundations for a feature.