Congratulation Laura & Thank you Octopus!

Now we are featured in Mouth online!

View low resolution version here

first, an exploration of colour; secondly, get to master texture; third, learn about form, composition and layering.

Back at our favourite Bricklane cafe/bar that’s more than a thousand but less than a thousand and two! A place where the smell of freshly baked cakes keeps the creative juices running.. Another Bricklane meeting and a highly productive one it was. Gin, Pinar and myself jumped straight in at the deep end and focused on our website. We were in agreement that it was not working in its current guise for several reasons: layout, the platform, the lack of continuity, etc etc (I go into more detail on my blog).[Fail early and fail often]. The mock up I made was our starting point. The clunky and inflexibility of weebly made it difficult for us to transpose our ideas, so we came to the decision to dispense with this and seek an alternative option. This new option is wordpress.

Mock up prepared for meeting

Pinar handled the logistics with regards to hosting, and used her expertise to secure us a good deal. We searched through various templates and well designed websites until Gin finally found us two, which after brief discussion we whittled down to the winner (See Gin’s blog for further details). Now with the basic outlines in place (obviously we will need to tweak the template  to suit) we moved onto content issues. So far our content has been ok, but we again like the website pages we struggled at times with continuity. We discussed editorial ideas, language and style and came up with a few new suggestions on how to streamline and improve our editorial production (from picture editing to a deadline procedure that is more in keeping with magazine and online production). Following this we had a mini brainstorm for new content ideas, and talked about our roles.

I suggested that we implement a new ‘code of conduct’/rule to our team. Lateness and failure to deliver will be met by fines. Pinar and Gin suggested that the ‘fine/punishment’ should be in the form of cakes, chocolates, drinks or something like that! We understand that timekeeping and failure to keep to deadlines will effect our productivity, we also believe that if we work hard but maintain a level of fun and enjoyment in order to keep team spirits high as a group we will achieve more! A happy workforce is a productive workforce! Of course, this doesn’t mean we are giving away free passes to flaunt the rules, it just means that we want to encourage team spirit.

Our Manager, Pinar then duly sent out emails/texts to Yvonne and Cristina t notify them of the main outcomes of our meeting (namely the change to wordpress; other developments will be discussed in person at next meeting). All in all a very productive and enjoyable meeting, testament to the power of knowledge sharing, teamwork and having fun (er… and cakes, got to have cakes!)

Major meeting highlights

• New Template -Wordpress/ see Gin’s Blog
• Hosting. Pinar has speedily set up our new hosting (As we like to say “Gorgeous!”)
• New production process – weekly ‘deadline day’ team meetings, new picture guidelines and editorial process. To run more in line with magazine/online publishing techniques.
• Website redesign.  Existing website not working, we decided  to act quickly to change this. We will have more structured guidelines and style guide. A more magazine-like approach.
• Content – A need to sharpen up our content from style of photos and layout to write ups from objectivity and facts to subjectivity and reactions from debate to comic journals. We have to work on our ‘tone of voice’.
• New rules!
• Cakes, hot chocolate, wifi, leather sofas, songs that Pinar didn’t know the name of, songs that Gin danced/sang to,  cookies, giant sandwiches + giant lasagna, laughter, new determination, fun and great new ideas to take us forward!

My finger nails are now considerably shorter!

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February’s look:

January 2010: