the other side.

sorry for the lack of posts over the weekend but i was rather a busy bee doing lots of reading for my dissertation and writing my first post for a blog i've been asked to contribute to. the blog is for the other side magazine and it's all really rather fab. after you've had a sneaky peek at my post i recommend stopping and browsing through the rest that's there.

my post is all about my good friend, camilla seckin, who has been doing rather well for herself over the last few months. the image at the top is taken from the latest exhibition that she's been working on. of course, my post at the other side magazine blog will tell you more... (hint: go there and read it please)

so besides my shameless self-promotion there is of course a MA related reason why i've been so keen to get involved with the other side magazine. all content is contributor driven. you contribute to the blog and your work could be in the magazine which is printed and distributed right across london. it's described as being london's only "blogzine" giving the chance to aspiring writers and fellow creatives to get their work out there in the big wide world. it's a really fabulous, contemporary way to deliver magazine content and i am completely fascinated by it.

being brave enough to allow contributors to post what about what they want whether that be art, photography, culture, fashion, illustration or.... anything keeps a daily updated blog ticking away whilst enabling a beautifully crafted magazine to be created for an audience of publication lovers (i.e. fashion publication obsessives like me) and, all the while, providing a forum for creativity to be presented outside the artist's diary/ sketchbook/ canvas/ memory stick.

the lovely people at the other side magazine are really making a strong attempt to capture the imagination of it's potential readers and contributors in an ever changing media landscape. i haven't seen anything quite exactly like this before and i love it. (and i'm very excited that i'm involved in it too.)

the i-pad saga continues...

another team i-pad update it would seem. and i like this one very much. econsultancy's article is spot on with one very wonderful and very apt observation...

"...by focusing on creating publications solely for a particular type of device, Murdoch and Branson are ignoring the fact that we live in a multi-channel, multi-platform world..."

exactly. my. point.

why on earth produce an "i-newspaper" or a digital magazine exclusive to one type of e-reader/ tablet computer device?! you are effectively alienating a mass potential audience. not everyone is an apple user, like not everyone uses a nokia phone or a dell computer, for example.

whilst i am sure murdoch and branson are confident enough that their high profile names and big business assets will draw the flock to the i-pad and their exclusive i-pad applications, it is naive of them to ignore the importance of user centred/ friendly design in terms of how they present their publication.

consumers demand choice and flexibility... with this venture it seems they'll have to deal with limitations. and i'm pretty sure they won't deal with them for too long.

the royal "we".

i hate bringing up the topic of the royal wedding, as i am sick to death of it as i'm sure you all are, but through my sleepy-dust caked peepers this morning a little snippet caught my eye on the bbc news.

ten days following the announcement of their engagement, a book about kate and wills is to be sold in bookshops, supermarkets and other such retail outlets across the land. this is the very first one apparently with seven more currently in the making and more on the way nearer the time of the wedding.

talk on the news this morning focused on how this book would kind of sit alongside the good old cups, plates and tea towel ensemble in terms of commemorative use. the most interesting thing spoken about between the bbc journalist and the very eager publisher was the fact that a book was considered over any sort of commemorative electronic publication straight away.

the publisher cited the reason for this being that people want something physical to own. they crave the book as a collector's item, something that they can leaf through at their own leisure, maybe not even immediately, but perhaps a few years after the event has passed. an electronic resource would not cut it at this point.

to me it seems the kind of people that demand this type of commemorative book would be part of that patriotic, monarchy-obsessed section of society. like having the book, despite the inevitable poor quality of content (no book put together in ten days is going to be a literary masterpiece), is a status symbol that allows one to be part of their exclusive tribe. this is the most fascinating part of the whole thing.

i know i won't be buying this book... but i like the idea of tribes and books.

well... this just changes everything.

with big thanks to the lovely band thomas tantrum for pointing this out to me, i have been alerted that the big b isn't the only one delving into an ipad only publication...

rupert murdoch has teamed up with steve jobs, aka mr.apple himself, to create the world's first "iNewspaper" exclusive to the ipad. the guardian article confirms that this digital newspaper will not be available in a print or web edition. apparently it was mr. murdoch that came up with the idea after reading a study that showed that, compararitively, people spent longer immersed in their ipads than they did on the internet (where "unfocused surfing" is more typical).

it's thought that ipad users can subscribe to the iNewspaper in a similar way to how music is purchased on itunes. given the fact that itunes monopolises music prices in the music industry, it's doubtful that publishers will want to see the same thing happen with this type of digital publishing and have every right to remain cautious at this point.

unless there some serious competition comes along with something very special indeed, it seems inevitable that the ipad will do for tablet computing/ publishing the same as the ipod did for digital music. with a projected 40 million ipads in circulation by the end of 2011, it seems that another apple revolution is on it's way.

can anyone stop them?! answers on a ipad app please.

Branson's big idea for a little i-pad mag.

so richard branson and his brilliance in entrepreneurship have struck once again. branson is set to unveil plans for a new i-pad only magazine according to mashable.

when first leaked in july, the magazine was said to be about "new creative, business and technological ideas" but further speculation suggests that it could just be a digital in-flight magazine for branson to showcase on virgin flights.

nevertheless, i find the specified and sole use of the i-pad to publish a magazine to be quite intriguing and maybe a little bit strange...

to think that it wouldn't have a sister blog, website or even paper version seems to make the digital magazine appear almost isolated. if it is just a digital in-flight magazine i guess this wouldn't matter as much but if you had another device (similar to but not the same as the apple brand) would this mean that you'd miss out on reading the articles your smug i-pad equipped fellow passengers have access to?

bit of a strange one... not sure what i think at this point. comments and feedback welcomes as always.

Fashion Media Conference: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow.

whilst this is a little late, i did want to comment on it... so i am. last month, the london college of fashion held a fashion media conference that brought together leading experts to discuss the key issues that are facing fashion media and communications today and consider them in relation to historical and future media cultures.

sounds like something i should have been in the audience for doesn't it?

unfortunately i found out about it all too late and was unable to get myself a ticket in time. gosh and darn it quite frankly.

put together by penny martin, editor of the gentlewoman, and dr. djurdja bartlett, of the lcf, it involved presentations papers from many influential academic figures in fashion including dr. agnes rocamora of the lcf, who is currently putting together the first comprehensive study of fashion blogging.

so it all sounded very interesting and i obviously got very excited about it all due to it's fashion media content but there are lots of things about it that niggle me.

when one googles about the fashion media conference there are, of course, lots of references that pop up but at no point will you find an official blog or website dedicated to the conference. this boggles my brain considering that this conference is meant to be about contemporary fashion media... you'd think that they at least set up a blog about it?!

also... one month on and there doesn't seem to be any videos or recordings taken from the conference that can be accessed online. why not? you'd think that they would want to get the conversation out there. what is happening in the world of fashion media?

finally... and this seems to be the most telling of the lot... despite the obviously brilliant presentations that were on show on the day, i can't help but feel the majority of presentation topics had very tenuous links to the actual discussion at hand.

overall the fashion media conference seemed to offer an academic point of view of their own personal research all gathered up and labelled as a discussion of contemporary fashion media in relation to historical and future media cultures even if their research possessed the most tenuous of links. maybe i'm wrong? perhaps someone that was there could correct me?

however, in my opinion, perhaps a london edition of the future of fashion blogging conference by the Independent Fashion Bloggers network would have been a lot more useful, accessible and relevant. here's hoping they come to london next time.

can't get no satisfaction.

so my morning of searching and achieving was a little bit of anti-climax. my trip to hobby craft did not find me the wool i wanted... it was all sold out. then i thought, well i could always buy that crochet book i've been after. so for about ten minutes i took apart the book/magazine area trying in vain to find it. of course it wasn't there. the thought of asking some smug 18 year old sales assistant if it was out the back did not appeal to me but oh.... my dear mother, no she thought it was the best idea in the world. so the smug 18 year old sales assistant with uber floppy hair told us if it wasn't there on the shelf it wouldn't be out the back but insisted that if he went through the same ten minute search that i had just endured as he was more likely to find it (probably with the power of his floppy hair). ten minutes later and a very impatient me managed to get the smug floppy haired one to stop searching in vain for a book that had evidently been sold out and to stop holding me up from storming back to my car with steam fuming out my ears with frustration.

then i went to the university of southampton's lovely hartley library to get my sconul access card and also get out a book i have been searching high and low for all over the place. found the book... hallelujah! so then my only task was to go and see the nice lady at the desk for my sconul card. this was straight forward enough but then... shock horror... she informed me that i couldn't take out the book that i had so needed for sooooooooo long. it was a one week loan and sconul access only entitled me to three week loan books. cue a massive sigh and a shrug of the shoulders from me... then a a barrage of muttering to myself all the way from the snazzy library turnstiles back to the car.

then i had to take my mother to the range. if you have ever had the pleasure (and i use this word with much emphasised sarcasm) of doing this then you will know how the urge to rip out my own eyeballs was rather pressing. i like the range as much as the next person for about twenty minutes to half an hour tops but AN HOUR AND A HALF with an indecisive mother is enough to try anyone's patience. fortunately i am used to being exuding an air of patience as part of my part-time job is teaching 90 year olds how to control a mouse so my mother was blissfully unaware of my frustration. how lovely.

so back home, i get to eat some homemade soup for lunch and now i am working happily away on some bits and bobs. still need that book though... if anyone knows of any online source i can get the time of the tribes by michel maffesoli then please give me a heads up. i will be eternally grateful.

right... back to cv tweaking and singing along (badly) to roxy music.

the distractions of knitting.

so i know i have been quiet of late but i have been trying my very best to find three very interesting and very needed books for my dissertation. and also knitting...

my time has been taken up with finding books, reading them, making notes on them... and then knitting.

i have also been revamping my cv and will be attempting to contact people i would like to work for in this week to come. i'm looking for freelance work really, with publications that are pioneering the way in new and different ways of fashion publication. whether they are these wonderful style mags that i can normally be found salivating over in a corner of magma or even in mike's newsagents near my work... or the usual gossipy weeklies that i like to indulge myself in from time to time. whatever they may be... magazines are continually evolving at the moment in many different ways and i get so excited over it i can hardly contain myself. i just want to get stuck in.

before i get into that today... i will be visiting my local hobby craft. i need some wool to finish off a christmas project for one of my friends.

knitting can be so distracting.