Mephodrone

One of the articles we covered was about drugs. After reading platform magazine ( Nottingham Trent's magazine) I noticed a really interesting article on meph titled "Mephedrone- Clean up this Meph! Check it out here:

You have to download the PDF but it's worth a read :) I'm impressed as it shows our articles are current.

Here's a sneak peak at our double page spread. Megan ♥

Frock Me!

I was debating whether to write an article on vintage for the magazine having visited the Frock Me! event in London earlier this year. Here is the poster for it if anyone is interested it going! It's so much fun and a great event to go to with your mum! I think this is something that Frankie could definitely been interested in, if only we'd had more time! Still...there's always Issue: 2!!


R xxx

Beatrix Ong

This is my favourite shoe shop, just off Carnaby St... although I can only afford sale items... at a push! But what caught my eye, and justification for it appearing on our blog, is the layout style of the image above. I think this would work well in our zine, particularly for the Festivalwear spread as we are suggesting garments which could be put together to form an evening and day outfit.

R xxx

It's all going on at American Apparel and it doesn't look good...

I read this article on the Guardian website which stated the huge loss of sales American Apparel are experiencing in 2010 (£12.4 million in the first quarter). The article also uncovers a string of events which don't help the brand's image. This is definitely one brand which could benefit from its own zine to help promote itself and reconnect with the target market...although I can't imagine they'd be able to invest it in at the moment! Fingers crossed our favourite spandex-endorsing, neon kitch brand can get itself through the latest crisis.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/may/23/american-apparel-retail-industry


R xxx

Competitive Pricing

We had to decide how much we were going to sell our zine for at the London Zine Symposium this Saturday 29th May. We chose to price it at £1 despite the printing costs being £7 per copy. We just feel that this is an amazing opportunity to get our work seen by people from far and wide and therefore don't want cost to reduce the chances of it being sold.

It seems though that we are pricing ourselves rather competitively with large glossy publications such as Cosmopolitan and She magazine, both of which emailed me this week with a promotional offer of £1 per copy. R xxx

New Brand: Renee London

I've just spoken to a friend of mine who is in his 3rd year at Leeds University studying Fashion Design. He has been doing incredibly well and established his own brand: Renee London. Wish I'd remembered earlier and I could have interviewed him, however I will try and contact him re: coverage in the zine if the word count allows. Check out his designs at www.laden.co.uk and then search by label and look for 'Renee London'.

Rx

This is....cool illustration!!!

x s x

Patrick Demarchelier Photoshoot

I absolutely love the following photoshoot. I'm a big fan of Patrick Demarchelier and this photoshoot doesn't fail to impress. The reason I am mentioning it on our research blog is that the composition of the individual photoshoots fits together really well and the actual concept of being unwrapped is quite an intrusive notion which compliments the concept of our scrapbook zine.




Rx

30 Days of Fashion - Emails

The '30 Days of Fashion' is an annual event which runs throughout the month of September. By signing up to their newsletter you can benefit from industry insights into upcoming events and discounts with contributing brands.

What I like about this form of communication is that it is intense. People who have signed up will receieve emails coming up to the month of September and then every day throughout the month. This enables viewers to become gripped and encourages them to view the website every day. By entering competitions, the company is acruing vital information about its consumer base to ensure its contents is best-suited.

In relation to our zine, this intense form of communication could build excitement around the new issue of 'This is...' and encourage followers to the Twitter, blog and Facebook fan page.


R x

Trend-Led Brand Emails

Whilst trying to research how different brands communicate with their consumer base, I identfied that the majority of Accessorize's emails are based on their product range. They promote their ranges through current fashion trends which they identify and then create a small moodboard of their products which fit this theme. This could be applied to our zine 'This is...' but create a small moodboard which indicates the types of topics which shall be discussed in the up-coming edition.

See these visuals from Accessorize below:


Rx

H&M Magazine & Emails

I've become a follower to many brands monthly newsletters to get an idea of what information they promote and how. Since I have been following H&M, they have released their new magazine. It has been useful to see how such an established brand has managed to create a credible magazine to support and, importantly, enhance the brand.

The key features of the newsletters are:

• Promoting new range; such as swimwear arriving in store and online.
• Access to online version of H&M magazine
• Fashion video; such as Nathalie Rykiel showing her 5 personal favourites from the Sonia Rykiel pour H&M collection.
• Information on new collections, especially designer-created ranges or celebrity endorsed ranges.
  

What I particularly like, and I think is something to consider for this project, is that the magazine can be viewed online in a book format, i.e. you can view the double-page spread as if it were a printed document and turn the page by clicking on the arrows below.
Rx

Hilarious new skirt designs!

What you see above is not a series of fashion faux-pas but in-fact new prints. As with all crazy new ideas, these skirt designs have come to the surface from Japan. I can't quite imagine wearing them myself...who wants to go around looking like they've got their skirt tucked up! But these are extremely quirky designs and 100% unique. Gotta love 'em!

Rx

29th May

Check out some competition :) x s x

Skins

Skins is a bit of an influence for me for this magazine. Each episode is in the life of one of the characters, seeing things through their eyes which sort of resembles our idea for the magazine where each issue is through the authors eyes, discussing their likes and dislikes etc.

Skins also covers day to day issues (often exaggerated versions but still) and this is similar to some of the articles that are going to be included in our magazine.

Megan ♥

Nick Knight

I love Nick Knight's work, the way he captures the model, even though they are posing it always looks like they're caught in a moment. The use of negative space aswell is something I really love and something I've been experimenting with in my photography.

I found this smoking image too, we did a shoot the other day to go alongside our 'is smoking cool' article. I like this image a lot.

Megan ♥

Tavi

The most talked about girl in fashion right now.. Blogs are increasingly more influential. hers is brilliant (find it at thestylerookie..com)

If a 13 year old can inspire.. surely our group contribution to our zine can!!

Megan ♥

Rococo

Shey's latest freelance work has been for Rococo magazine, an interesting thing for me to talk to him about seeing as our project is obviously based on magazines. Currently Rococo is a free publication and Shey told me they get all their money from advertisement. It's aiming to be a glossy like Vogue or Elle. They've has some impressive names in the mag such as VV Brown, Paloma Faith and apparently they hoping for Lady Gaga in their next issue!

Check out their website: rococomagazine.com

Megan ♥

Graphics

My friend Ben Lee (aka Shey) is a wicked graphic designer, graduating from central St Martins with a first class honours degree it's impressive stuff.

Check out his website:

Twstedlogic.co.uk

Megan ♥

Zine vs Magazine

How do you tell the difference?!

I found this website today called www.esty.com/storque/handmade-life/zine-scene-1868 you have to check it out if you have an interest in Zines.

It acts purely as a small insight into the world of Zines, for people just starting out like ourselves. However weeks after we have begun the project it got me wondering....Do we need to make our magazine more Ziney..??


It also got me to thinking about the promotion of the Zine, and what little things we could do, I really like the badge idea...maybe we could think about making some..?







s x

Shoot numero 2

Here some more behind the scenes of shoot number 2. Its to go alongside our article "Is smoking cool."

Enjoy, Megan ♥

Tom Ford

I want this girl to be our model for our candyshop shoot.

This however will not be possible, so I want someone who looks like this model to be our model.

She is perfect... beautiful with attitude and a natural pout.. plus, big hair.

Megan ♥

Valerija Kelava..

Would of been perfect for our drugs shoot, however I think the gorgeous Helen did a very good job :)

This shoot reminds me a bit of ours.... Megan ♥

Blog: Sex at Oxbridge

Got to be one of the most talked about blogs at present. A student from Oxbridge talks about her sexual conquests in a tone of voice which is informal, humourous and easy to read. For the purpose of our issue 'This is...Frankie', the style of writing and tone of voice is similar to that which will be produced in our articles. Here are some quotes below...

"There was a recently graduated Blue that I knew from his time here, but with whom I had never slept with. He was charming, but not overtly. Witty and a bit of a quirk, not to mention previous athletic prowess. He had gone a little soft around the edges after retiring from 6 hours of training, 5 days a week, but was still very handsome and I was fairly certain he would not mistake me for a wall and try to piss on me."

"I do not have a problem with girls. They usually have a problem with me oddly enough. Because I get along with men better than I generally do with women, and thus surround myself with men, this can often ignite jealousy or resentment in other girls, especially if one of the said men surrounding me is their boyfriend or a boy they would like to make their boyfriend."
You can read more posts by the anonymous Oxbridge student by going to oxbridgesex.blogspot.com

Rx

Edith Russel

Heres some photograph previews that I managed to get hold of when interviewing Edith for my article. The interview went so well.

x s x

Luxure Magazine- My article inspiration

This is an article I found when flicking through my issue of Luxure. It an article on 'Lost Glamour' Where has it gone? I want to focus on this and the loss of romance within my article.

Fav Quote...

"Glamour has always been closley allied with beauty: but it should achieve something more than beauty alone can do: it cannot be mearly bought or borrowed, and must be adopted whole and entire - whether for a moment or for life."

x s x

Grafix love

Sometimes I think, Sometimes I am. Sara fanelli

A few ideas for layouts, and style for our zine. x s x