Art Jewelry magazine Editors' Blog : publishing

Want to see your work in Art Jewelry magazine? We've made it easier to submit.

Kristin Sutter — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 21:00:00 GMT

Have you ever wanted to do an article for Art Jewelry so you could teach your fellow jewelry makers how to do a technique? Or have you ever thought that your work would look great in Gallery or Beyond Jewelry? If you have, we'd love to hear from you. Check out our new PDF "How to Pitch a Story Idea to Art Jewelry" (hint: you can do it in 4 easy steps) and our newly revised "Art Jewelry Submission Guidelines" here. We admit, understanding how the publishing world works can be a little daunting. Hopefully, these documents will make it easier for you to navigate the quirky world of magazinery. And stay posted — we'll have more helpful documents available soon.

—Kristin

How Art Jewelry editors pick the projects for each issue

Kristin Sutter — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 21:38:00 GMT

Today we had our issue-planning meeting for the July issue. For those of you who enjoy thinking about a design for a piece of jewelry, making various sketches, playing with shape and color until you get an idea just right, you'll understand how exciting these meetings are, because we're essentially doing the same thing — playing around with the contents until we get the balance just right.

First of all, we unwrap everything — it's like Christmas. We open the boxes containing the jewelry that's been submitted for projects, and we put all the pieces on makeshift display. When we've finished ooh-ing and aah-ing, we start by considering what will be going on in the jewelry-making world when the issue hits the newsstands. Since the Fourth International PMC conference will be going on in July, we wanted to make sure we had a good selection of metal clay projects for our July issue.

In general, we go on to talk about cover pieces. Of course, we think that all the jewelry we accept is beautiful, but we need to make sure that the cover piece is especially striking, not only because we want to get your attention, but also because it has to hold its own amid a bunch of words on the page and a bunch of other magazines next to it on the newsstand. Sometimes, we save certain pieces for cover pieces, so a piece that's especially stunning might have to wait a few issues to get into the magazine.

After we pick our must-haves, we start filling in the rest of the issue with all the other media we want to cover: metals, polymer clay, mixed media, wire, chain mail, enameling, etc. and technique articles. We want a balanced variety of media and skill levels so that all of our readers, from beginner to advanced, are able to learn something exciting in each issue. We also consider visual style: If we choose a project that's very precise, we may try to choose another that's more organic or rugged.

At the end of the meeting, we do one last check: good mix of media, good mix of skill levels, good mix of styles. And we ask ourselves: will it be beautiful? If the answer to all these questions is yes, then the real work starts.

Making Art Jewelry magazine better

Kristin Sutter — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 16:06:00 GMT

The editors and designers of Art Jewelry meet every year for a retreat, where we look at what's been successful in the past and what direction we'd like the magazine to go in. To prepare for the meeting, we often raid bookstores and buy magazines that are accomplishing a little of this, a little of that — the stuff we want to incorporate into our own voice.

Last Friday I pulled at least 20 magazines off the rack. But as I looked, I started to get frustrated, because I realized I didn't like a lot of them, for their content or their design. (Of course, I also found some excellent magazines that I'm excited to share at the retreat.) Personally, I enjoy women's magazines and home-decor-type stuff for about 10 minutes. Then I get overwhelmed by a feeling of failure: my home will never be that neat or color-coordinated (who buys only orange books to place just so on their shelves?), my appearance will never be that calculated (I think this is worth a try, but I don't even have children and I can't find time to brush my hair in the morning; thankfully, my hair stylist works with me on this), and my "decor" isn't really worthy of the term. The design of many magazines is as overwhelming as the content. There are odd lines and colors and icons, and navigating them feels like trying to find your way on an alien planet's subway system. Or the pages are cluttered with an uncaptioned confetti of pictures.

But for me, being overwhelmed soon turns to being annoyed. Instead of feeling like a failure, I start to feel like it's the message in those magazines that's wrong, because I think that people should follow their own bliss, should put time and effort and money into what matters most to them, not into what matters to the collective of women's magazines, the home and garden world, or the industry's fashionista manifestos. This experience reaffirmed for me that it's good for me to be at Art Jewelry, a magazine that exists for the sole benefit of those people whose priorities, in my book, are admirable. For those people who are following their own bliss, putting effort into what matters to them.

I've always cared a lot about Art Jewelry, but meditating on all this makes me even more determined that Art Jewelry should be that excellent magazine that people buy off the newsstand, excited to read it and share it with friends. There are, as always, a few areas of the magazine that I think we could improve. But I'd really like to know what would make the magazine better for you. If you could have anything you wanted from Art Jewelry magazine, what would it be?

I'm excited to hear your thoughts on this! Thanks, in advance, for sharing!

–Kristin

Fun at the One-of-a-Kind Show in Chicago!

Kristin Sutter — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 21:09:00 GMT

Lunchtime on Dec. 7, 2007, found Jill, Addie, and I (plus Addie's mom and a friend of Jill's) at bluprint, a restaurant at the Merchandise Mart in Chicago. We met there to fuel up in preparation for the journey we were about to take through the floor of the One-of-a-Kind Show, which was going on above our heads about seven floors up. I ended up taking a picture of my gourmet mac & cheese.

I wanted to show the picture to Naomi Fujimoto, senior editor at BeadStyle magazine, one of our sister publications. Naomi has a thing for gourmet comfort foods. The food was so beautiful that everyone wanted a picture of their as-yet-undevoured dish.

Yum!

Thus sustained, we took the elevator upstairs and spent the next five hours inundating ourselves with beautiful works of art. Most notably — you guessed it — jewelry. Many times, we stopped by a booth and asked that all-important question, "How did they do that?" (When we ask that, we know we're seeing something magazine-worthy.)

When we're scouting for jewelry artists, we try not to take too much time away from the jewelers; we understand that they're at the show to sell their work. But many people were gracious enough to take the time to hear us out about why they should submit a project or an image for gallery. (If you're thinking of submitting something, we'd love to hear from you! Check out our guidelines.)

Some artists encouraged us to try on their work for fun — and how could we resist!! Of course, some of us went home with a couple you'll-regret-it-forever-if-you-don't-buy-it pieces.

So, thanks to the art jewelry community for delighting us! We hope to return the favor! (If we did our scouting job right, you'll be seeing some fabulous work in our pages in the coming year.)

–Kristin

Field Trip

Addie Kidd — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 22:18:00 GMT

I love factories. Well, actually it's the highly specialized machines inside them that I can't seem to get enough of. The loud noises and smells... I could probably leave those behind.

My factory fascination dates back to my childhood; I was introduced to the busy world hidden inside plants and presses by Mr. Rogers. Yes, that Mr. Rogers. My all-time favorite part of his show was a segment that took you through the process of making a crayon. I watched intently as machines formed, rolled, and coallated thousands of multi-colored crayons into boxes. Then they wrapped them up and shipped them off to me. All that work, just to create something for my enjoyment. Wow.

Well, a dozen or so of us here at Kalmbach Publishing Co. took a field trip today to see where all our company's magazines are printed. For over three hours we toured the massive Sussex, WI branch of Quad/Graphics, where our friendly tour guides showed us around their fast-moving machines. Though I disguised it with a calm responsible adult exterior, I was a giddy little girl walking through all that technology and machinery.

My excitement was even greater today than when I saw that production line of crayons long ago, because this time I knew I'd contributed to the final product. Right in front of me, I could see all this ingenuity and technology at Quad, coupled with the content created by the team here at Kalmbach, adding up to this magazine that's delivered around the world. All that energy coming together to create something that we really do hope you enjoy. Now that's pretty amazing.

Brushing up my math skills...

Hazel Wheaton — Fri, 05 Oct 2007 20:06:00 GMT

Every kid who's ever struggled through a math class has hit that wall of rebellion — you know, the one where you adamantly proclaim that you'll never use this skill in the real world. There's this nifty new invention called the calculator, and that will be enough to get you through all the math you'll need in your day-to-day life. Computer programs now automatically tally spreadsheets, and electronic cash registers mean that we no longer even have to count out change.

I wonder sometimes if we haven't gone too far in the opposite direction, and that the adage "absence makes the heart grow fonder" applies even in the case of the dreaded mathematics. The Sudoku mania that's currently sweeping the United States has to come from somewhere, and this nation has never struck me as one that's particularly fond of math as a rule. Yet, suddenly we're all numbers-obsessed, and even better if we can work them as a logic problem.

I was thinking about that today as I was struggling over my own numbers-based logic problem, also known as the "issue planning sheet." This is the point in the magazine's schedule when we sit down with the other departments and figure out how many pages we actually have for editorial space — once I know that, we can make sure the stories fit, and rework ones that need to go up or down a page, or need to start on a spread instead of a single page. It's like a crossword puzzle, but with numbers. And it's fun. Or, as a former coworker of mine once said, "It's fun. It's tear-your-hair-out fun, but it's fun."

Roughly stated, the rules to the game as follows: Each page can be broken up into three separate columns, or taken as a half page or a whole page (unless you have a strangely shaped ad or a particularly weird piece of editorial, and you need a half-column — then you have to start adding again). Some advertisements are guaranteed a particular spot and can't be moved. Editorial departments can vary in size from two columns to two pages, depending on how much space you have. Editorial features need to appear in an unbroken chain, or "well," in roughly the center of the magazine, and must be arranged so that there are no breaks, so that a story that ends on a left-hand page is followed by a story that leads from a right-hand page. Classified ads have their own page definition and requirements. Special ad sections — such as our Classes & Workshops section or the new special Tucson section — need special placement with an unbroken well of their own.

So, what happens when you have roughly 29.25 pages of advertisements sold, 17.32 pages of editorial departments, and 71 pages of editorial features? All of which is supposed to fit into a 92-page issue? I'll wait while you do the math.