If Newspaper Club had an official strapline, it would be something like “helping people to make their own newspapers”. It’s not snappy. It’s not punchy. But it’s true.
One of the main goals of Newspaper Club is to help people get from having a great idea for a newspaper, to having the confidence to hit ‘print’.
We try and provide useful information on the site, and we’ve put a lot of effort into making ARTHR, our online layout tool, into something that lets anyone have a go. We answer hundreds of enquiries a week, helping people with anything from margins to finding a designer to delivery & subscription services.
But sometimes nothing beats meeting people face to face; explaining and answering questions when everyone involved can point at the same piece of paper.
With this in mind, last week, Art and Engineering had an outing to our friends at the School of Everything, just up the road in Bethnal Green, London. We ran an evening class called ‘How to Make Your Own Newspaper‘.
Twelve people attended for a couple of hours. We talked through a brief history of newspaper design, how the printing works, how to use ARTHR, and some design tips and tricks that we think work well on newsprint. And we answered lots and lots of questions, gave out sample papers, and had some jaffa cakes.
Here I am explaining, how the printers work through the medium of overly complex diagrams. Don’t worry, this was brief.
As the old cliche goes the teachers learnt as much as the students. It’s always great to meet your customers. We got a clearer understanding of what we’re explaining well and what we’re not, as well as just finding out more about the background of people.
And we had a lot of fun. And not only that, but it was sold out. It sold out very quickly. Which got us thinking. Maybe we should do it again?
If we did, would you be interested?
