Our Newest Designs

In our quest to design a logo, and in a larger sense to create an image and feel for the magazine we have 2 more concepts to show. This time in the form of ideas for our masthead.

For the logo we have settled on the image of a half laurel writhe, for reasons far too pretentious to go into now. And this is our try at integrating this image with our name.

Breaking the rules

After breaking the cardinal rule of never letting your blog go for more than a week without an update, we’re back. Though I’m sure we lost all 3 people reading it already.

We’ve worked on finalizing SOME content for the first issue and it will be up by December 8^th! This will also include a redesign of the current beta site that is currently up on our dot com.

We both would have liked to get the entire finished project up all at once, but with time constraints and poor scheduling it seems that, like this blog, SOMETHING just needs to happen or we’ll totally stall.

As I have tried to learn Dreamweaver (a web design software made by Adobe) I have had many successes but many, many more failures. And, as a result, we’re currently looking into just using iWeb instead (a simpler, drag and drop software made by Apple) until I can get a better handle on coding.

Why don’t you just write the content and get someone who knows what they are doing to build your site? You might ask.

Well, unfortunately there aren’t many people willing to do that for free and what’s more it would be great to learn how to do this myself. Also, Adam and I disagree over creative stuff as it is, and I can’t imagine how bad it would be with a third person in the creative process cluster f@*k that is this magazine.

We have liftoff.

It's been a bit since we've have an update here because we have been working hard to get something up on our actual URL. And, after much troubleshooting, we finally have a site! It's pretty bare bones and the first issue is still in the works, but it's something.

Check it out at NewAthenianPress.com.

Leave your feedback, problems and thoughts here. We'd love to hear what you think! Stay tuned for more.

Adam and Jason

Making: About Us

Yesterday Adam and I (along with our on-the-spot photographer and columnist Ted), took to the streets of Brookline to take our head shots along with some other pictures for the site. For a while we have had the idea to take a picture of the two of us in Boston Common sitting on a bench with books, a printer, coffee cups, news papers, a phone etc.. strewn about us as if "Boston was our office". In this spirit we took these pictures here in Brookline, on a rainy day to contrast the eventual Boston Common pictures we will take on a nicer day. Ultimately, we hope to have it set up online so that every time you click on these pictures they will switch from the rainy to sunny day versions, and possibly, eventually change for all four seasons - as we will eventually publish issues quarterly.

Enjoy.

New Athenian Press? Really?

Caution: Blog Rant.

Stranger with no manners: "You know, you really should work on your name."

My overly polite brain: "Well maybe you should go work on your face, and then go screw yourself because you'll be prettier."

Jesus! Why does everyone think everyone else wants to hear their lips jabber about? Just because you manage to manifest a congruent thought, that does not mean you have to move your lips in praise of it.

I'm probably being a little harsh, actually scratch that, I am being harsh. But for good reason, as most deserve it. Not to be insulted or harassed, but rather to serve as nice eye opener, most effectively delivered graphically or in a disturbing way, (and if this comes a cross as too aggressive, well then you're just too sensitive).

Now don't get me wrong, I say stupid shit all the time and in case you were wondering, this is not just about words or opinions, this is about knowing when someone cares or not.

Like for example, I care when you block the store entrance with your 4 lane wide stroller and all I can see is one brat knocking shit over and making it quite impossible not to stare and judge. You really need that coffee with a name containing three languages to take your kid to the library? You also know that as opposed to all the nice back streets in this neighbor hood, you decided to take your precious on the busiest, overcrowded, taxi-swimming most polluted street in a five mile range for a stroll. Good work there super mom, try really thinking about you kid sometime. I didn't want to walk out of the coffee shop with an opinion on child rearing or birth control, but know because you didn't seem to care to control your quite large and overbearing orbital of a world from ramming into mine.

I also care when, while I wait for my stress-free two train and one bus ride home from work, you sir care not to notice that I have been waiting on the platform since long before you arrived. I know it's hard to wrap your head around it, but just because we are not at the bank, an amusement park or somewhere that serves food of the fast variety, it is possible to form a line, without little poles blocking your ability to move in a straight line. It easy to see why it's a hard habit to break, as I'm often drawn in a straight, unyielding path when I see something that I just can't wait for, like a seat on the train, as you did by decided that when you entered the station. But you know what, you're going to a goddamn Red Sox game you drunk fuck! Where you will happen to be sitting for four hours straight, so maybe my day wasn't all that bad. But the last straw is soon to be broken when I truly won't care about ever being courteous to any single person in this city, and I will never be bothered about being polite ever again.

And, I most certainly care, when I am working on a when I'm working on a piece for the magazine. A piece that takes me out of my comfort zone, which is best described as very enclosed and lined with pillows. I need to find everyday people and ask a simple question. You then in turn, write your answer, where I then collect it and incorporate it into a word on the street opinion piece. So, I've already asked you for one opinion that you weren't going to give anyway to anyone. Lucky you that I care to ask right? Well luckily me that you care to give your opinion on other things as well. Especially things that are none of your business, things that took me and my partner a lot of thought and effort, things that I didn't ask you about, like the name of out magazine (which by the way can not be changed at this point anyway). You might have known this if you'd care to ask about something worth while, but instead you decided to tell me what you care about, about my project.

Next time, think before you start drooling over your self for your original thought, and think if I actually care to listen, think and respond to your asshole talking. Yes your opinion came from your asshole. So now I'll take my own advice and shut up because why should you care much about what I think...? and well anyway, I got other things to care about.

So, more about why we picked the name next time.

- Adam

Meetings

We need a better model for our meetings. They are productive, but unfortunately eat our time. And working 9 to 5, neither of us have that much to spare. Often we write things and then pass them off to each other, but it's difficult to get the most out of collaborating when you aren't right there with someone to explain your work, or to questioning theirs.

When we do find the time for meetings we do well, but only thanks to our systems. For writing, one person will draft the article, story or poem as best they can. Then the other will sit down and read it. At this point writer and editor will go over the piece, at times line by line, the editor explaining what he understood and the author discussing what he meant. Changes are then made on the spot to clarify, simplify, reword etc. It's extremely time consuming to mini-workshop everything like this, but we've found it gets the best results.

Our second task is putting together the layout of the magazine. For this use a "storyboard" notebook from one of Adam's old film classes, and approach the layout of the magazine like scenes from a film. We construct the content and images on every page, like frames, to directly correspond to the one's before and after it. Another way to think of it is that it's essentially one long, unbroken scroll, that when completed is accordion-ed into a magazine format, (examples coming soon).

Our Office/ Kitchen Table
Our Studio/ Bedroom

- Jason

Looking Back

Spending time sitting in the Park Street stop with a friend of mine, talking about graduate school and the future, I found my self talking about my post graduate year at KUA more than a few times. I am a pretty nostalgic person to begin with, but today I realized that there is a lot to be gained from sentiment, literally.

Pouring over old pictures and projects, I found hundreds of things that I had completely forgotten about. Looking at these now I find it hard to believe that these are my pictures, or why I'm not still doing this. There's a lot to be found in the past. A lot that can inform the present. I'm just glad I had enough foresight to save any of this.

Tap, spring 2005. NIKON coolpix 4200. Photoshoped.
Rehearsal 1, spring 2005. NIKON coolpix 4200. Unchanged.
Rehearsal 4, spring 2005. NIKON coolpix 4200. Unchanged.

- Jason