On Tuesday (31 March), Issue 2 of Inside Out went to press. Although we had initially planned on a three-month turnaround, advertising ourselves to our readers as a quarterly publication, it soon became apparent this wasn’t going to be realistic. A combination of factors interfered with our timeline, the primary two being the size of our team and budget. As a result, Issue 2 is coming to you a little later than planned.

Well-meaning colleagues in the industry have suggested we consider removing the illustrations from our pages, and that we cut our contents by half. While this would undeniably make things easier, reducing both the work and financial load, we feel that it would also take away from the core of what Inside Out is all about, something we are not prepared to compromise.

Inside Out is unique because of the way that it looks, because it stands out and dares to be different, because it has such a variety of content and gives such a large number of its pages over to the reader, because it offers space for so many separate voices to be heard, and because it openly addresses a subject stuck in the dark ages in regards to development and public perception and prides itself on this fact. What’s more, it manages to do all this whilst remaining positive and upbeat, offering its readers hope and support in equal measure and an alternative approach to dealing with the difficulties they might be experiencing in their lives. To alter any of these elements would be to endanger the publication itself.

Other advice has been to publish online, and to change our output to two editions per year. We immediately dismissed the first option, because it is important to us that we are a concrete object, that we are accessible to the widest audience possible (not everyone on the planet has a computer and it would be wrong of us to presume this), and that those who have been published in our pages are given a real sense of ownership over their work. We are considering the second option more carefully, because it might just be a sensible idea, but are not making any rash decisions just yet.

So, in the same breath that I am apologising for the delay in the arrival of our second issue – and I do feel I owe an apology to all of the patient individuals who bought their copies in advance – I am defending that delay wholeheartedly, for it is not without reason or for want of trying on my part. This is not a publication that can be rushed or produced on a shoestring budget: the quality and appearance of the end product is too personal and important for that.

Diary of Recent Events:

As I have already said, Issue 2 went to press on Tuesday, but before we reached this stage there were months of compiling and working on editorial and artwork, followed by several weeks of intense proofing and copy and image editing.

Proofing

The purpose of this process is not to make major changes, but to spot any lingering mistakes – to copy, to artwork, and to layout – things we have previously missed due to the number of elements it is necessary to account for.

I have to admit that this is my least favourite time: it results in eyestrain, migraines, and a stiff neck, amongst many other unsavoury things; it is tense and fast-paced and relentless; each page has to be polished and perfected before it can be signed off in preparation for print; there is screen-gazing and scribbling in red pen in equal measure; my computer is taxed to its full extent, and my printer is made to earn its keep. For this reason, it is always a relief to finish and move on to the next stage.

Pre-press Meeting

With our final pages exported from editable documents to high-resolution PDF’s, it was time to visit the printer for a final meeting about the magazine and to confirm a date for print. I hand-delivered my files, preferring to see them arrive and checked at the other end,  and then we discussed my decision to upgrade the binding from saddle-stitched (stapled) to perfect bound (with a spine). After this we looked at the dummy that had been made up in order to give me an idea of what the finished product would look like, and confirmed the exact width of the spine and what I wanted to put on it. It was arranged that the pages would be set the following morning, with my digi proofs delivered to my door that evening.

Digi proofs are high resolution printouts of the magazine’s pages. They are expensive and by no means compulsory. However, since I found them found them to be invaluable with Issue 1, I wasn’t about to take the risk with Issue 2. A1 in size, they contain, in the case of Inside Out, 12 pages per sheet. Contrary to what you might expect, they are not laid out in chronological order (although I wish this were the case). Rather, they  are set in the order that they will be trimmed and bound in the magazine. They provide an accurate representation of how each page will look in regards to colour, and allow a final hard proof to make sure nothing has been overlooked. This is the stage where colour and resolution can be checked and corrected, and where you can spot if you have inadvertently exported the wrong version of a page, missed off something like a page number, or overlooked something else equally as important simply because there are a multitude of things that have to be accounted for beyond the actual copy itself.

Delivery of Digi Proofs

As promised, the digi proofs arrived the next evening at 6pm. This was a special moment. It is only on delivery of the first set of proofs that it hits me that these pages, pages that I have been staring at and working on for months, so intently I that know most of them by heart and feel a deep sense of attachment to them, are solid objects that I can hold and touch. It is only now that I can truly visualise what the magazine will look like and process the extent of what has been achieved. This is when all of the hard work is realised and I am infused with a fresh burst of energy – always much-needed at this point.

My immediate temptation was to dive in and get started, especially because I had a tight deadline to meet. But this is a long and challenging task, requiring my full attention and mental acuity: missing things at this stage is not an option; from here, there is no going back without incurring delay and additional cost, both of which are obviously undesirable. For this reason, I reluctantly put them to one side and returned to my desk.

Proofing Digi Proofs

The next morning I rose early, positioned myself cross-legged on the floor (because unfortunately my desk is not large enough to accommodate an A1 sheet, no matter how much I might plead with it) and began.

Two long and intense days later, with a only few minor changes made, and it was time to give my final approval on the pages and email the updated files over to the art team at the other end. We were now ready for print. The hard part was over. I exhaled a huge sigh of relief.

The Big Day

Upon arrival at the printers, I was taken straight to the warehouse where the magic was to take place. Inside Out is printed on a machine called a Heidelberg which uses an offset process called Lithography. Essentially, the pages, as arranged on the A1 sheets, are burnt onto metal plates via a laser. These metal plates are then used as the template from which to print the magazine. I followed my guide over to one of the presses to look at and approve the first plate. This contained the cover pages – both inside and out, front and back. I worked alongside the operator, increasing and reducing each of the separate CMYK elements (cyan, magenta, yellow, and key) until I was happy with the result. 

This process is all quite complex, so I won’t attempt to bore you with the full details. If you would like to learn more about it, you can do so here: Lithographic Printing Explained.

In the end, the process took the whole day, and I was there from start to finish – which turned out to be in the region of 9pm. It was a long and thoroughly exhausting day on both an emotional and physical level, especially coming on top of the previous weeks of unbroken hard work. But it was also equally as exciting as the first time around and, for the most part, very interesting. By the time I left I was thoroughly exhausted but I was also filled with a deep sense of satisfaction; the hard part, at least for this issue, was now completed, and the final gift was only hours away. Holding and touching and flicking through that first copy is an amazing feeling, the sense of achievement comparable, I like to think, to the birth of a child. Each issue is precious to me, a true labour of love; I welcome with open arms into the Inside Out family.