Sunday, March 24th 2013
I was reading this article in the FT on Saturday, it’s about how social media has been good for writing, because the informality encourages people to write more. To practice writing and spelling by doing.
“Her own study of primary schoolchildren suggested that texting improved their reading ability. Texters, after all, are constantly practising reading and spelling. Sure, children tend not to punctuate text messages. But most of them grasp that this genre has different rules from, say, school exams.”
Which got me thinking about my own kids (who are primary school age) and how they’re starting to explore the computer. Mostly playing games and watching YouTubes, but they’re getting very good at searching for stuff and they’re beginning to enjoy typing. There is definitely something exciting about seeing your words on a screen.
They love writing on paper and making little books too.
This one is called ‘The dog atack’.
They love drawing too, they’re always drawing little scenes, stories and battles. Huge vistas of robots fighting vikings.
So over the coming Easter holiday I thought we could sit down and make a newspaper together. Once we’ve written their name on the cover and The End on the back it’s only 10 pages to fill. We can make 5 copies for £30. And then they get a little publication to keep. If I remember back to when I saw my first ever words and drawings in print, I think they’ll be delighted.
Wednesday, March 13th 2013
Like Clockwork is an intriguing new serial by Scottish writer Damien M. Love. Written in weekly parts for the Kindle, the first instalment also appears in a limited edition digital tabloid newspaper. Containing robots, shadowy figures, atmospheric European locations and men in long coats, it’s designed for curious minds of all ages.
Get hooked at www.likeclockworkserial.co.uk and get your limited edition newspaper here.
Tuesday, March 5th 2013
Back in December, Civic design agency Spacemakers printed Do Well and Doubt Not, a fanzine for Tottenham. They chose a Standard Traditional Tabloid format and designed using just black and red.
Inside, interviews with local people aim to give the community a voice on post-riots Tottenham: to let them celebrate the area, whilst also addressing the problems and opportunities that they see around them. Do Well and Doubt Not is available from Tottenham outlets or by contacting Spacemakers at contact@spacemakers.info.
Thanks to Matt at Spacemakers for getting in touch and telling us about their project.
Friday, March 1st 2013
The Ffestiniog Englands are the oldest working narrow gauge engines in the world. They’re rare, historically important trains, and they’re 150 years old this year.
Chris Thorpe’s Flexiscale Co is preserving them, using some of the most modern technology at their disposal. They’re 3D scanning them, to produce highly accurate software models, which can then be 3D printed at any scale desired to produce plastic models.
Chris is running a Kickstarter project to help with the scanning, and the backers can get a model at various scales as a reward. They are also a number of other rewards, one of which is a Newspaper Club newspaper about the project, with lovely photos of the process and some of the renderings.
What a brilliant example of the physical-digital flip-flop. A physical object is scanned as a 3D point cloud, software rendered to a 3D mesh, coloured in and converted to JPGs, uploaded and laid out in our layout software, ARTHR, sent digitally to our press on Tuesday, printed Tuesday night, sent out for delivery on Wednesday, arrived Friday morning, and now will be posted out to the backers of a project, all of whom discovered it online. And breathe.
Chris has reached his goal on Kickstarter, but there’s still time to back the project and get a model and a newspaper of your own.
Wednesday, January 9th 2013
We’re all back and ready to print after a nice big Christmas break.
And for the new year, we’ve designed and printed some lovely calendars.These are a big thankyou to anyone who’s printed with us over the past 12 months, and a hello to anyone who plans to print with us over the coming 12 months.
The calendar has some of our favourite papers in it from the last year, and a handy guide to colours and text size for your reference. So you can see how things look in print.
We have a limited number sitting in a pile in the office, if you’d like one, just drop us an email at support@newspaperclub.com with your address and we’ll pop one in the post to you!
Tuesday, December 4th 2012
Congratulations to City of Wolverhampton College for their award-winning newspaper The Spark.
The Spark, which is the college’s part-time prospectus, picked up Silver for best Magazine Publication at the FE First Awards. The awards, presented by The College Marketing Network, are held to celebrate marketing best practice and the work that is being achieved in further education colleges across the UK. Well done to the Spark’s designer Craig Podd and everyone else on the team.
Redesigning The Spark and switching to a tabloid newspaper format has meant that more people pick up the prospectus, and the college’s costs have been significantly reduced. Good news all round.
There’s a new edition hot off the press this week so why not see for yourself if you’re in the area.
Friday, July 20th 2012
This is a newspaper. It really is. Well, it was once anyway.
We got a lovely email the other day with the subject line ‘A Year Late, Thank You’. This was from Graham Jones, who last year was a student at Bath School of Art and Design.
For their degree show last year the students had a great idea to transform a humble newspaper into something different.
Their publication, called ‘Checkout’ was designed to look like a receipt. They printed a standard tabloid newspaper, but designed it in such a way that it could be guillotined into two halves, trimmed and then bound (with a fantastically low-fi rubber band) to make a small booklet.
It looks amazing. There are more photos on Graham’s Flickrstream. Thanks to everyone involved.
Wednesday, May 16th 2012
The lovely folks at S.E.H. Kelly have printed another beautiful newspaper. This time it features traditional businesses with an increasingly rare line of work like the UK’s last horn button manufacturer, or a West Yorkshire cashmere mill.
Although they are a thoroughly modern business S.E.H. Kelly draw on this tradition of great British craftsmanship to fashion their own line of high quality men’s clothing (see catalogue above). They have a new workshop at 1 Cleve Workshops, Boundary Street, London, E2 7JD and invite interested parties to pop in for a browse and a chat. It’s open at weekends and by appointment during the week – if you’re quick you might even catch a glimpse of their new newspaper.