Final Project – Presentation

The aim of my Final Project is to produce a digital magazine that focuses on mobile technology. With this, I’d like to take an in-depth look at the existing design principles of magazines, and try to apply them to the digital space. The result of the project will be a magazine in a PDF format that is optimized for mobile viewing experience. The format would allow the magazine to be uploaded on different on-line publishing platforms like issuu. Furthermore, most current smartphones are equipped with a PDF reader by default, which makes magazine viewing possible on the go.

To identify my readership, I’ve used a consumer tech magazine – STUFF - as an example. According to the latest report from National Readership Survey, the dominant group of readers are between 15-44 years old (190k) in the ABC1 group that corresponds to the upper to lower middle class workers. This means that the typical reader is economically active, and thus more likely to own an expensive smartphone. A research by comScore also proves that most smartphone users (in US) in the age between 25-44.

Scanning print magazine issues and distributing them online isn’t anything new. Engadget, for example, are starting to offer a weekly round-up of their best online news stories and reviews in a format that is very reminiscent to magazines.  Large companies, like Times Inc., have already started offering subscriptions to its magazines that would also include access to digital versions on different platforms like PC and Google’s Android OS. Also mentioned earlier, issuu is a well known online source for a broad range of paid and free magazines. There’s a free Android mobile app of Issuu, but closer look sadly reveals that it does very little to make the magazines an enjoyable experience on devices with smaller screens.

With my Final Project, I’d like to show that magazine content can be optimized for viewing on phones. While it’s widely understood that magazines are going ‘paperless’, no real efforts has been made to transition magazines to mobile devices with smaller screens. However, the growing popularity of smartphones spelled the rise in portable devices with large and detailed enough screens for the mobile viewing of magazines to be relatively comfortable.

I recognize that blatantly porting the magazine to a digital format wouldn’t be the right choice. To succeed, care must be taken to recognize the fundamental design concepts that identify magazines, and apply them, where possible, to the digital and mobile experience. The obvious challenge lies in the modest size of mobile screens, and this has been one of the main reasons why phone-optimized magazines haven’t really taken off.

Here’s a typical magazine spread as viewed on the iPhone (sample taken from ‘Digit’ January 2012 issue):

In contract to this, the aim of the project is to cater the magazine content specifically for mobile screens (sample taken from my final project):

Magazines can benefit in various ways for going digital. First and foremost, print fees can be skipped, and circulation and logistics fees are narrowed down to the expenses associated with the internet bandwidth costs. Secondly, going digital allows magazines to be distributed to the consumers in a much timelier manner. The magazine can be directly stored on compact devices like mobile phones that are small enough for people to carry them wherever they go. A more advanced version of digital magazine can also employ interactive multi-media content like videos or useful web-links.

The main tools for the development of the project is Adobe Photoshop and inDesing. These are extensively used in the magazine publishing field (alongside Adobe Illustrator). I would like to use my Final Project as opportunity to further develop my skills with these applications alongside my writing skills, thus hopefully improving my employability.

While I have laid down basic ground work for my digital magazine, there are several technical issues I’m yet to address. Above that, the ongoing question is which digital distribution platform is the most suitable one.

A sketch of the inDesign project I’m currently working on

Click on the image to expand it.

Camera tips by Damian Dinning from Nokia

At Nokia/CNN event in London, just a day before the Royal Wedding, Damian Dinning, the mastermind behind Nokia N8 camera, gave a few quick tips to CNN iReporter’s on how to use mobile phone’s camera to it’s fullest potential. I was a the scene and recorder the whole 50 min session. And edited version can be watched below:

Nokia E7: first reactions

Click the image to view the blog post

Nokia X7 hands-on

I’ve written a hands-on article about the new multi-media focused smartphone from Nokia on Mobile Choice website!

The link

Nokia E6 hands-on

I’ve written a hands-on review of the latest Nokia handset in the business range for Mobile Choice!

The link

Coursework 2: Reflection on Professional Experience

To gain professional experience in my desired field, I basically had set two very distinct goals, one more realistic over another. My reasoning was that I would have an achievable goal to pursue while also leaving my chances open to a less likely, but preferred work experience placement. In best case scenario, I would gain a work placement in one of the consumer electronic magazines, their print or respective online versions.

The other, less preferred, but at the same time more realistic target involved working on a self-managed project to improve my skills. That way, I would further strengthen my CV and thus my chances at reaching my primary goal. That was the theory, at least. And now, reflecting on my still ongoing journey, I must say I achieved very mixed results that nevertheless gave me a lot to think about.

I always preferred the visual presentation and quality of writing in print publications against the speed focused, and often too inconsistent, online environment. I would argue that internet will be the early demise of print, as the later has many great and unique qualities that shouldn’t be overlooked. While still unclear, there’s a chance that the core values of magazines will survive the transition to digital realm with the help of tablets and similar type of electronic readers that seem to gain in popularity lately. But that, of course, doesn’t change the fact that print publications are in fact struggling to stay relevant at the moment, thus making my primary goal increasingly difficult to achieve.

Ignoring those odds, I setup ‘Stuff’, ‘T3′ and ‘Mobile Choice’ as my preferred targets to gain work placement experience. But before submitting my CV (also available on this blog), I made sure it was as accurate as possible for the work placement I had chosen to pursue. I visited Careers & Employability advisers in Student Centre several times to sharpen my CV, making sure it wasn’t the weakest link in my submission. An interesting revelation came out of this: most employers don’t even bother to read the attached CV’s and Covering letters.

I was strongly advised to put the most important bits about myself – my prior work experience in print and some of my published online articles – in the body of the email instead. It’s rather discouraging to think that despite how good is your submission, the person receiving your email will in the best case scenario only skim through it.

Several weeks and emails later, I came down to almost no results. I managed to get an email from Mobile Choice editor only to get a negative response, but a response nevertheless. While that meant I couldn’t get a traditional work placement, I maintained this only contact I had so far, and eventually I was asked to write two short articles for their website (links also included on the blog under 201MC category).

So my determination did bring results in the end, even though not exactly what I was aiming for in the first place. The nature of the said online articles required me to submit them in the following day, and this had proven to be a challenging, yet at the same time rewarding, experience. The editor overall liked my written pieces and said I have ‘an excellent understanding’ on the topic of mobiles.

There were some changes in the opening paragraphs, however, to include more ‘good keywords’ that would appear in the Google search engine results. While I had written quite extensively for blogs, I never thought about this particular issue before. Another change was to include the most relevant info in the first couple of paragraphs. Without having to worry about the word count when writing for online, I always opted for a much smoother transition into the ‘meat’ of the story, and this gave me another thing to ponder about. With the amount of information online, the attention span of the reader is set to a bare minimum – probably even less when reading tabloid newspaper articles – so it’s extremely important to get straight to the point as fast as possible.

Sadly I had lost a substantial amount of time while trying to reach editors of the said consumer tech magazines, and this brief co-operation with Mobile Choice was as far as my work experience went. A day before the royal wedding I was asked to write a 560 word review that should be published both in print and online, but unfortunately I wasn’t able to present supporting evidence for this at the time of writing.

While waiting for emails concerning the work placement, I didn’t squander time and also worked on my secondary goal. The aim was to create a fully prepared magazine spread using Adobe InDesign. The project has proven to be very time consuming as not only I had to learn advanced techniques within InDesign, but also research different design and layout options for my article. But this only strengthened my resolve to get into print – never before I had so much enjoyment out of working on something so creatively engaging.

My ultimate goal is to provide a visually attractive product review that entertains as well as provides all relevant information in a precise, engaging tone reminiscent to magazines. An idea I want to push forward is the exploration factor, and how an article can guide reader’s experience of discovery. The project is still in progress, but I have provided a couple of sketches for viewing on this blog.

To conclude, there’re a couple things I can reflect on. First and foremost, and that is regarding my SWOT analysis in coursework 1: I must learn to manage my time more effectively if I’m to work in this industry.  Both print and online environments demand working under very tight schedules, and there’s simply no way around it. What pains me the most is that more often, the quality of the material is likely to suffer. It’s up to the journalist to strike a swift but precise balance between what can be, and what needs to be done. My strength my lay in my pursuit for perfection, but with this I also risk being short-sighted. I must somehow learn to compromise, one article at a time.

Secondly, reaching out to the right people is extremely difficult in this industry, and waiting for immediate results can be a very frustrating experience to say the least. Only with an unbreakable determination it’s possible to achieve something, while at the same time learn to celebrate even the smallest of victories.

201MC: CV and covering letter [Updated]

DOWNLOAD CV PDF file: CV_cuhrajs

DOWNLOAD Covering Letter PDF file: Covering_Letter

201MC: Professional Experience Proposal

My primary goal is to apply and get work placement in one of the leading consumer electronics magazines, where I ultimately wish to have my career in. The print publications I’m targeting are: Stuff, T3 and Mobile Choice. Since there are no work placement or internship opportunities currently advertised on their website, a ‘speculative approach’ is required. I’ll try phoning and asking them for email, where and to whom specifically I should send my CV and the covering letter. But, in case sending CV doesn’t give any positive results, other options are possible, as outlined below:

1.) Applying for position as a freelance writer in one of the major online tech portals, such as Mobile-Review or FoneArena.com , where I would be exposed to a far greater audience than ever before, when I was creating content for smaller blogs. This would also offer a unique opportunity to get my name known better and perhaps make some new contacts.
2.) If the above option fails as well, my proposal for professional experience would be to independently produce a full magazine page with self-written text, formatted images and design – all done and ready for print. This task would be completed by utilizing Adobe InDesign, which is an advanced print and digital publishing tool. I’m already familiar with the software by reading various online guides and free tutorial videos, but wish to improve the quality of my work to more presentable levels.

By picking and working on any of the two alternate options, I can later return with a stronger CV to continue pursuing my primary goal.

201MC: SWOT Analysis

Strengths	Weaknesses
What advantages do you have? Knowledge of several languages, experience working with print publication, having been part of several media events and having met people working in the mobile industry. What do you do well? Working independently on large projects, Experienced at searching the web and finding necessary information, can skim through large chunks of texts quickly and pick the most relevant piece of information, can work intensely for extended period of time if really invested in completion of the task, decent writing skills but more writing styles should be practiced to improve. What relevant resources do you have access to? Online is the most important and universal tool for work. Going from this, online resources such as blogs, social media and emails are used extensively. What do other people see as your strengths? Persistent in carrying a task if invested. self-critical, self-motivated, accurate, ambitious, honest, creative, enthusiastic	What could you improve? Not easily adaptable to quick changes; need to be more open minded to criticism and suggestions from other people, passive to face new challenges or embrace sudden opportunities, overly picky sometimes – perfectionism that often leads to either longer task completion times or no completion at all in some cases. What do you do badly? Time management, decision making, working under constant pressure. What should you avoid? Tasks where fast decision making is vital for success.
Opportunities	Threats
Where are the good opportunities facing you? It’s a question of my life. I’d like to find a way to combine print magazine page layout and design with online environment. Visually, there’s a noticeable stagnation of online articles, with chunks of text and images being not very engaging to the reader. Finding a solution to this problem would ensure a unique and winning opportunity. Since magazines are looking to expand in other media like the web, my experience writing online content coupled with my interest in magazine journalism could prove useful to the employer. What are the interesting trends you are aware of? The decreasing role of print publications, instead being steadily replaced by the more versatile online medium. The growing popularity of smartphones mainly because of enormous influence of the internet that touches upon virtually any aspects of people’s lives. The rise of social medium in delivering content to the public: facebook, twitter, youtube and wordpress blogs. The smartphones, tablets and wireless communication technologies in general are growing at an expansionary rate even in the declining economic climate that can only signal a steady demand from the consumers. New business opportunities can be spawned from this knowledge in the journalism media.	What obstacles do you face? Time is a major, decisive factor that is directly linked with money. Experimenting with different approaches to the creation of content requires significant amount time. While the competition is fierce in magazine journalism, it should consider as a nature of the beast. Finding new, yet unexplored routes to secure the desired placement in publications is the real obstacle. Are the required specifications for your job, products or services changing? Journalism is clearly moving towards the online environment, and that makes it all more exciting, more competitive and time restraining than ever before. ‘Jack of all trades’ people and qualified professionals could be in high demand, but for people with lesser or no experience, the job hunt is extremely problematic in this economic climate. Could any of your weaknesses seriously threaten you? Outlined weaknesses are not threatening, but rather holding back from trying different routes in acquiring the desired job positions. Having less weaknesses would certainly open up more job prospects, but not in the desired field.