Today I met with a guy named Woody, the founder and editor of Sneaker Freaker magazine.
I was lucky enough to scam this meeting through a friend of my step-dad's, who works in the graphic design field.
Despite the fact that today has been absolutely horrendous and basically I can't imagine feeling much worse or more confused/ between a rock and a hard place, I am going to push on and try focussing on this, because it's very important to me. Maybe forgetting about all the other shit for a few days will somehow help. It certainly can't get much worse.
So anyway, here is some of the advice and basic industry background knowledge I received (or what information I managed to take from the conversations, anyway). Hopefully i will be able to apply as much of this as possible, and put this into practical means.
First of all, and also most dishearteningly, magazines, and other print media in general, are on the rapid decline. Woody told me this on the phone when I first contacted him, but you know, I'm not just going to take that bullet at voice value (haha, get it). While this should be a great hinderance to me I feel like,
a) I'm way too far into this already to give up now (AKA I have no back up plan) and,
b) I need to be open-minded and positive about the way things can turn out. I mean, he honestly thinks that magazines will pretty much be non-existent in 20 years time, or at the very most, a 'luxury' and I really can't stand the idea of living in a world like that. So it's my responsibility to make sure that either that doesn't happen (good luck) or just modifying my vision slightly to suit the modern, and rapidly changing, world of publishing.
He also mentioned that a lot of the publishing nowadays goes on in Sydney (for those of you who don't know, this is Australia's try-hard capital city...not that I can really judge, I've never been there...) This is where the Australian associated press (Fairfax, News corporation, Harris Group) head offices are located. So basically if I wanted to work for a magazine, then really I should consider moving to Sydney. Or even London, where things don't seem to be as glum (in the publishing world at least, haha).
Another thing to start focussing on is what it is I actually want to do. Like, I say I want to be the 'editor of a magazine', but really, I have little or no idea of what this role even roughly entails. I've been bluffing. Woody, as the 'editor' and founder (he wouldn't like me saying that, he thinks it sounds wanky, haha) basically put, is the boss. So although he may not do much writing himself, or taking the photos, he still has a lot of creative control. He helps out with art direction (which has a lot to do with the layout, photography, graphic design and text design/layout.) From what I can gather, most of the jobs in the magazine take some kind of a collaborative effort, with a lot of back and for-thing, re-touching, editing and drafts. This is what I was expecting so it was good to hear that from an expert. I still don't know what it is specifically that I want to do, but I assume that will come with some practical hands-on experience either as an intern, TAFE, or at a Uni of some kind.
That leads me onto his next bit of advice, don't go to school, at least, not if I want to write. Being unsure about which realm I want to dip into first, I am reluctant to take this advice and run with it, and as he pointed out, you do need to be quite proficient in your computer and graphic design skills to make it within and inch of a magazine office. So really, the highlighted advice in this column for me personally should have been, go to graphic design school if you want to make it within even an inch of a magazine publishing office.
He suggested that hands-on, practical experience is most often the best way to learn things. This is why an internship, or even just hanging around the offices of some locally based magazine would be most beneficial, and perhaps more-so than listening to a teacher talk about design principles. Having said that, it is worth mentioning a quote that wasn't exactly said to me like this, google helped out; “In fact, researchers have settled on what they believe is the magic number for true expertise: ten thousand hours.”- This is a quote from the book Outliers, by Malcolm Gladwell.
Outliers (upon closer google inspection,) seems to be worth reading, and is generally about how to achieve ultimate success. The idea is that, if you practice something for 10,000 hours, you will always be good at it. And so the philosophy here is, effort, discipline , and dedication. This is kind of what I am scared of. I have been known to procrastinate... hell, the whole time i've been writing this I've been procrastinating! But this is the purpose of this blog. I need to make more of a genuine effort, and work harder, that is, after all, why I got a job that offers night shifts.
Woody mentioned that it is definitely worth getting more acquainted with blogging, the internet and the digital world in general. So this is me making and effort to do that. I am just going to look past the fact I'm pretty terrible at HTMLing, and that I feel uncomfortable working with something I can't physically move around in front of me with my hands. Because let's face it, I'm never going to be able to run/work for a magazine that scans collages for the layout (at least not fundamentally). Spelling and grammar is also a big thing, I mean, I'm pretty slack in my zine because a) I can't be fucked and b) it kind of gives it an underground edge (this is really just and excuse, honestly I'm just lazy, refer to reason a).
The last tip that Woody gave me, which really is the most obvious one, but always important, is that you need to be keen. Really keen. Luckily that didn't come as a shock to me, and one thing that I am probably better at than most things is having a passion for this.
So, where to go from here? I have insider advice, and although it is a lot to take in and consider, challenges are good things and you know, he really emphasised taking it day by day. By all means set goals, but you need to think about the short term as well. You know, tomorrow, next week, next month, and then next year. Despite the fact I still don't specifically have an idea about what I want to do, at least I have some means through which I can achieve something like it :)
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