OUGD502 - Studio Brief 1 - Guest Speaker - Liv Siddall

Liv Siddell 

Worked at Its Nice That and created Rough Trade Magazine

While at university she originally wanted to do Illustration but was told to do Graphic Design which meant she found her degree difficult and not on things that she actually wanted to do.

She enjoyed looking at everyone else's work however was never enthusiastic about her own.

She got an internship at It's Nice That which meant that she was able to write articles about other peoples work which was one thing she enjoyed while at university. 

She would write about anything but enjoyed finding lesser known things to talk about rather than all the big artists / designers.

She worked for It's Nice that for 4 years but quit her job to go freelance which she found quite lonely and not as easy as expected.

Rough Trade approached her to create a magazine for their record store, which included filming and writing interviews, podcasts and making the magazine.

She wanted to inject some fun into the magazine as many similar magazines were all quite serious. Ended up being a magazine about the shop rather than the music.

Bubble types and punk zines were used as references for the magazine which allowed for a fun and free aesthetic. The aesthetic of the magazine aimed to reflect the shop as a working place using the broken, grimy and ripped parts of the place as inspiration.

To make a magazine well a format is needed for every month.

There were limited funds (£1000) to create the magazine with so she had to scavenge for content. For interviews in different countries, people within those countries were asked to interview the musicians. The use of free online fonts is cheap but also plays with the idea that anyone can create the magazine. Bands would get board talking about their work so getting them to do fun tasks e.g. horoscopes, photographing their tours using disposable cameras etc meant lots of content could be created cheaply. Having no time or budget meant that the content had to be fun for the bands to do.

No one was checking the magazine so they had freedom to do what they wanted and had fun doing it.

Tips

Do stuff that you're interested in 

Everything is done before

If you can't do something get someone else to do it 

Tire Theory 

If you're seen to be trying people are more likely to help