Graduand Lucy Bick has posted about her week’s work experience (during Easter) with Marie Claire magazine. This opportunity inspired her when she created her own magazine (pictured on the left) as part of a final portfolio. CLM Degree Show runs until 5 June and you can view Lucy’s page on its exhibition site:

Throughout my three years here studying CLM Contemporary Lens Media (Photography and Video) I have found that my passion within photography is the post production side of it, rather than taking the actual photographs. I much prefer the editing of my images and then creating different layouts with my photographs in my sketchbooks.  I have always known that I wanted to work for a magazine but I was unsure of all the different areas within a magazine and what they do.  Back in February we had a guest lecturer and a 2013 CLM graduate, Hannah Wilson, who came to give a talk on her work with the art department at Look magazine. From this talk I had much more of an understanding of the different areas within a magazine, and knew that the art department was the area which best suited me. Not long after Hannah’s visit, she passed me on some details of who to get in touch with at Marie Claire to apply for the opportunity of a week’s work experience. Both Look magazine and Marie Claire come under Time Inc. and are based in the same building.  As soon as I got these details I got in contact with Marie Claire straight away and was lucky enough to be accepted for the work experience.  This was with the art department of the magazine, where they create the layouts and designs for each of the pages of the monthly magazine.

The work experience was based in London in the Blue Fin Building, just behind the Tate Modern. When I first got there I was given my own desk and computer to work on for the week. At the beginning of the week my day-to-day tasks were creating the ‘dummy magazine’, which meant printing out the page layouts once they were complete and putting them in the correct order to create a dummy of the June 2015 issue. This was then reviewed by the editor in chief later in the week before the magazine was sent to print. Some of my other tasks included attending show and tells with the Editor in Chief and Fashion Editor to decide what garments to put in the magazine. This was particularly exciting as I got to see a lot of items of clothing that were not yet in stores. I was also given control of the Marie Claire Pinterest account for the week.

Towards the end of my week with Marie Claire, I was given the chance to shadow the Art Editor, learning about how the magazine is put together. She would firstly collect the images needed for a certain page or spread from the pictures department, then collect the words needed to go with the images from one of the editors of the magazine, then when all this was together in one folder, the layouts could be created. She created several different layouts for the spread and then showed them to the creative director who would either approve them or suggest changes. I found all of this very interesting to learn how each page of a magazine was created.

I was then given some images to create my own layout designs, working on Adobe InDesign. This was useful for my own portfolio as well as learning how to use InDesign. It was doing this that confirmed for me that this was definitely what I wanted to be doing when I finish University. Throughout the week I was given the opportunity to ask lots of questions and to learn about the industry. On my last day I was given an hour to sit down with the art editor Maria, to ask any questions and to get any advice that she could offer. I asked what she would be looking for if I wanted a job in the art department at Marie Claire and she told me that experience was key. She said that if I wanted to end up somewhere as big as Marie Claire I would have to have some experience working with smaller companies and work my way up.

For part of my portfolio module on my course, I decided to design and create my own magazine to add to my portfolio. I wouldn’t have been able to do this without the knowledge and experience gained from my work experience. I thoroughly enjoyed my week at Marie Claire and everybody there was very welcoming and down to earth. I have been asked to keep in contact with them and to send them a copy of my magazine I have created. Here are some of my pages: