Ruh-Roh!

J-School Confidential: Can Professors Catch Up?
This gal poo-poos how web-lame her profs are.

I have nothing to say about that.

Tumult on the Radio

Though I work mainly at home, I do drive to our Boston office weekly. It's nice to have a reason to Listerine and take off my slippers, and I basically walk into a day full of edit planning meetings. But it's about a two-hour drive (sans snow, which adds another 1.5), and so I listen to This American Life and RadioLab. (If you've not heard the latter obscure sciencey podcast, download immediately and pass along to Todd Evans and any other broadcast major you know. It's the sort of work that makes me wish double-majoring in the J School wasn't verboten.)

Anyway, TAL episode 344 (The Competition) had a real J-Law flavor to it that will make for a nice ride to your great aunt's boyfriend's daughter's house over the holidays. Specifically, listen to Act Two: The Race for Second Place (although Act 1 will make you reconsider when you last laughed off a human rights canvasser).

and may she RIP

I thought this deserved its own post:

Blueprint has folded.

Sigh. Although the magazine had its faults (a front-of-book too frenetic and random to be read easily, too much fashion in a so-called shelter publication), it was also fairly prolific (I think) with its use of typography, design, and content (it featured it's editor in chief's teensy-weensy Manhattan apartment, for one).

This is the latest in a many great magazines to sigh its last breath. Jane, Budget Living, Organic Style are three of my favorites that have recently shuttered. House & Garden, perhaps the grand dame of high-end shelter pubs, shut down a few months ago. Travel+Leisure Family, a mag I worked on while an ASME intern, couldn't survive out there on the newsstands all alone and gave up. There's even a website dedicated to the death of magazines. How morbid is that?

What do you think? Is it a terrible time to be in publishing (if Martha can't make it, who can?), or are these all just magazines being terribly unsuccessful finding an audience? Or, do I just have terrible taste in magazines, thus all my favorites die?

and, exhale.

It's done, kids. We finished the first issue of our new magazine. It will be out January 14; for now, you can get a sneak peek here.

There was a time after college where I actually missed the all-nighters we pulled at Drake Magazine. I thought I'd never have that experience again; the commraderie, the creative collaboration, the feeling of really putting your own personal stamp on a publication. Well, let me tell you: launching a magazine is like that college stuff times 842. It was the late nights, the bad food, the pressure to be creative, plus the stress of trying to also have a life. (My dishwasher still isn't emptied and I haven't done laundry in weeks.)

However hard it was, though, I can say that I learned more still about magazine industry--stuff I didn't realize I didn't know: little nuances of the break of the book, budget issues (even more than we learned in J119!), things of that nature. I refreshed my copy-editing, proofreading, and fact-checking skills (yes, you WILL need this knowledge past your internships! And keep that copy of Strunk & White's "The Elements of Style." Seriously. Speaking of, have you seen Maira Kalman's illustrated version? That's a book after my own heart.) On the flip side, I realized I do know a hell of a lot about the business of magazines--my previous jobs have given me at least a working knowledge of what makes a good cover, how to include more service in the magazine, how to keep the reader top of mind, and that, really, 2,000 words about paint colors is TOO MANY WORDS.

As a staff, I'm hoping we learned a lot about what we're not going to do for the second issue. We're not going to wait until a week before we go to the printer to entirely switch out a department for another story. We're not going to start fact-checking two weeks out. And we're definitely not going to work until 10 p.m. without coffee or food (that makes for crabby associate editors ... me). And we may--I hope--re-introduce the serial comma (I miss it).

But I know all the hard work will pay off. After the new year, we're having a launch party, then it's all hands of deck for our second issue. (Secretly, I had a dream that I quit the magazine, and I was only sad because I couldn't go to the launch party. We all see where my priorities are, huh? Ha. I told my boss that; he didn't really find it funny.)

I wish I could send everyone I know at Drake a copy of the mag; you'll just have to watch the website and order a copy if you're interested. Oh, and check out the website for my blog! It'll be DesignSponge meets UltraPDX with a little Rachel thrown in there for good measure.

Alert! Alert!

Sound the gongs: Pratt's back.

The smartie behind Sassy and Jane mags is going to be hosting a reality show spin-off of Ugly Betty (yes, the show that our own Tanner spends his days and weekends chained to; explain, Tan). I'm willing to let the type of TV show slide since it's Jane who's involved. (If you've not picked up How Sassy Changed My Life: A Love Letter to the Greatest Teen Magazine of All Time—or if it's not required reading, which I would completely vouch for—it is a super-fun way to spend an afternoon hopped up on Seattle's Best in Borders.

If you're a Pratt fan, give a shout.

Unproductive? Yes, Please.

I recently moved from Des Moines to Illinois and, over the past week, have discovered the challenges and rewards of working remotely. (I'm still working full-time as an editor for Lexicon but am working from home ... I have more structure in my day than a freelancer would, but it's just me in my sunny little office, so I'm just waiting for distractions to beckon.)

So far, I've managed to be incredibly productive, in part because we're too darn busy for me to slack off. But, just as there is in any office setting when a deadline looms or in your college dorm room when there's a paper to write, the temptation to fall victim to lures of You Tube or all the darn RSS Feeds I subscribe to is there.

So I have two questions to pose to you, whether you're working full-time, freelancing, or going to school. The first is, where do you go online when you want to be productive but you need to stop staring at that article, if only for a minute? And—let's be honest, more importantly—where do you go when you don't want to be productive?

Gawker, remembered

While you're hedging Meredith hall pre-finals, take a gander at this smart recap of Gawker Media's history, brought to you by N+1 magazine (which I really don't understand--art? culture? music? NYC needs another?).