The Glasgow team got very excited this morning to see these arrive in the post.
If you order a single copy via standard post, this is what will now arrive at your door – and (subject to stocks) replete with stickers!
Florecast – Skateboard Photography in Print
Tuesday, April 2nd 2013
This is Florecast – a new skateboard magazine founded by Sam Roberts, and launched in Brighton last month. For the launch, Sam printed newsprint posters with us as a digital tabloid, as well as the limited edition magazine, also a digital tabloid. We think these big, colourful photos look great in digital newsprint.
Sam explains why he chose to launch his magazine in print:
I wanted to somehow reward the effort, time and money that goes into (the) work by printing it in a large format without the clutter of too much editorial or any adverts, to showcase (the) work in something tangible – rather than them simply being thrown up on a tumblr or blog.
We like your sentiments Sam!
There are more pictures of the magazine and exhibition launch here. And you can find out more, and buy a copy here
Daily Express September 29 1958
Monday, April 1st 2013
My mother in law found an old newspaper inside an old dolls house. The Daily Express from September 29 1958. It’s worth noting that in those days the Daily Express, owned by Churchill’s friend Lord Beaverbrook, was a more formidable beast than the paper is today.
As you might expect it’s fascinating to look through it.
There’s a James Bond comic strip four years before the first film. Coincidentally there’s a review of the Aston Martin DB4 a predecessor of the DB5, a car made famous by James Bond.
There’s a beautiful line drawing of a Land Rover, a technique which has obviously been used to get the best out the printing press.
This is classic blogging in so much as I don’t really have anything to say, just some decent pictures. It’s just interesting.
Anyway.
Easter Weekend Links
Thursday, March 28th 2013
It’s the easter weekend, and newspaper club is going on holiday for four days.
The weather forecast is not looking particularly conducive (read: cold) to any kind of nice day out, but fear not! There is fun to be had indoors. Here’s my list of paper based suggestions:
1. Make something using newspapers! Here are ten things to do with old newspapers – I particularly like the geodesic dome. Anything you can make at home that is big enough to climb inside is a winning idea.
2. Make a Newspaper! Ben’s got a good blog post about this here.
3. Make Paper! Making your own paper is really very fun. Here’s how.
4. Nice, good long weekend newspaper read!
This is a really good one. The thing to do is, go to your local shop, and select one, (or maybe two!) newspapers of your choice. Make sure your tea stocks are high. Return to a comfy chair of your choosing, and digest. Naturally you’re going to want to start with the shiny bits first, but there’s something really relaxing about spending a morning reading the real news, after a week of snatched internet headlines.
5. Brave the cold and Go out! If you’re getting newspaper induced cabin fever after exhausting my list of things to do indoors, there’s lot of stuff on over easter weekend all over the country. Here are some great suggestions from the BBC.
Eggstra Eggstra Read All About It! (sorry)
Wednesday, March 27th 2013
Excuse us if we are a little slow this morning, we have some serious egg hunting to do. This is what we found on our Glasgow office door this morning!
In the breaks between eating chocolate, newspapers are being sent to print, samples being packed, and in our campfire chat, all sorts of terrible egg based puns are about to be inflicted on the unsuspecting London team.
A blog post about magazine design
Tuesday, March 26th 2013
We don’t talk much about newspaper or magazine design on this blog. Maybe we should. Would anyone be interested in that? Let us know on Twitter.
Yesterday, MagCulture long time friend of Newspaper Club, posted an interview with Jennifer Daniel, Graphics Editor at Bloomberg Businessweek. Bloomberg Businessweek is the best designed publication on the planet. Led by Richard Turley the team produce amazing work, week after week after week. We could all learn something from the simple, strong grid. The bold typography and the fun use of layout.
In the MagCulture interview Jennifer describes their design process.
Read the interview on MagCulture.
And see what I mean about the amazing work below.
And much more on Flickr.
Making a newspaper with the kids over Easter
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.
This is my kettle
Friday, March 22nd 2013
This is my kettle. There are many like it, but this one is mine. Kettles form a core part of Newspaper Club operations, and it’s important to pick one that has a number of key features to ensure a quality cup of tea. Below I will detail the factors that contribute to this kettle’s daily success, from a systems engineering point of view.
Resilience
Uptime is important with critical pieces of infrastructure. Things that move are things that break. This kettle has few moving parts – no electric heating element, or on/off switch. It’s heated by applying energy (ignited gas) to the base and waiting. This gives me the confidence that I can trust it in daily operations for many decades.
Graceful Degradation
However, if it was to fail, (say the handle fell off), it’ll still be partially usable (with an oven glove) until a repair can be made at a convenient time.
Control Surfaces
It’s not the fastest kettle, but by varying the gas throughput I can vary the time it takes to boil. If I dial it back a bit, it takes just a little less time to boil than my porridge takes to cook, so the tea is brewed just as the porridge is done.
Efficiency
Given a typical UK energy mix, heating things with gas is more efficient than heating things with electricity. However, as more of the UK energy mix (hopefully) shifts to renewable sources over the next few decades, gas will have a relatively larger carbon impact.
Aesthetics
It’s a nice red.
Holiday weekend coming up, so order early!
Friday, March 22nd 2013
It’s almost Easter, and that means Easter eggs and Easter holidays! Please note that we’ll be closed on:
Friday 29 March (Good Friday)
Saturday 30 March
Sunday 31 March
Monday 1 April (Easter Monday)
We’ll be open again on Tuesday 2 April for all your newspaper needs.
Although this doesn’t affect the days that we print (every Tuesday and Thursday at 2pm) it will have an impact on delivery times. Good Friday and Easter Monday are bank holidays so no deliveries will go out on those days.
This means that papers ordered on Tuesday 26 March may be take longer to arrive, and those printed on Thursday 28 March will take longer than usual to arrive. Please make sure you leave at least 5 working days for delivery in the UK and a few days longer for overseas orders. For more details check our delivery calculator.
If you have any special requirements please contact us at support@newspaperclub.com and we’ll be glad to help.
Newspaper Club is hiring a full-time designer
Friday, March 15th 2013
2013 is shaping up to be an exciting year for Newspaper Club. We’ve launched the new version of ARTHR to a very positive response, while being rushed off our feet getting all your brilliant newspapers onto the press and to your doorstep.
But there’s so much more to be done, so we’re hiring a full-time designer to join our little London team and help us build out a suite of products and services that will sit on the Newspaper Club platform, and combine newsprint and the web in some exciting ways.
We’ve written up a job posting, so take a look and see if you, or someone you know, might fit the bill.
To reiterate the job posting: this isn’t a print design job, and you don’t need to have any print design experience. We’re looking for someone with provable web/interaction design experience, able to take on design responsibility for the whole site, from branding through to interface design.
We’re looking to hire someone quite quickly, so please get your application in before Friday 22nd March. Good luck!