YOUNG PINES

I’ve been doing a bit of research about the ad space thing. I think it might be our best bet to target some of the independant adult shops that are in Liverpool City Centre or in London if Emma can get to pitches? I had a thought that major brands/companies might not be interested in a little thing like this zine, or if we do manage to contact someone, they may not have the authority to make the call for advertising budget. I think a stand alone store would probably be able to offer us a better deal with regards to cash and also we’d have a much quicker decision which we do need right now. I’m going to have a walk around town this week and get a list going of all the stores that I think might be worth a shot at then we can go there as a group and arrange to meet managers. I was thinking that maybe Milos and Michael could illustrate some of their products really quickly once they’ve identified them to show the owners how their products would be represented in the zine.

I’ve also just read Gemma’s email and I didn’t even think about approaching Magma in Manchester, Utility might be worth a shot too as they do take on work from new designers. I was thinking that we could offer to produce a ‘modesty cover’ so that the zine could stand on the shelves without getting complaints. What do you think?

I’ll keep plugging away anyway, let me know how you all think we should go forward with this.

SC

p.s. maybe FACT might be worth a go to to sell the zine there? We’d be able to go straight to the top there seeing as it’s Liverpool based. I’ve got a few contacts in their too :)

Hello all! Young Pines  interns have launched an Indie Go Go campaign! If you’re not familiar with Indie Go Go or crowd funding in general, it basically means that we’ve set up a platform for our fundraising to go public.

With there being only four of us, and a fairly limited budget for the work we want to do, we’re finding it a little tough to realise our ideas. We want to make an all singing, all dancing tome full of sexy illustrations, photography and stories. (forgotten our theme of brief? you can read it again here. This tome is going to be pretty awesome. As well as this, we want to make a smaller, more portable version that can be given out and sold at the event we’re planning. And on top of all of that we also want to make some super fun treats to give to our favourite people. The funds we raise will basically go towards printing all of these things professionally.

This is where you guys come in. We need you all to dig deep and donate whatever you can towards our cause. You can choose to donate as much or as little as you like - it’s up to you, but there are some pretty little treats for those of you who decide to give us one of the specified amounts on our page.

Want to help? Here’s our page!!! Remember there are goodies available for our donors! All blog posts/tweets are very much appreciated too, please tell your friends about us :)

Thank you in advance for helping us, we really appreciate it!! 

SC

Ok, here’s a kind of minutes from the meeting-

We decided that we’d be better off doing one amazing ‘tome’- ornate and beautifully bound. This will be easier on the budget and also a lot more original than a normal zine.  It also fits in nicely with the theme- a kind of spell book/magic story book. This was Milos’ genius idea and will be the first deliverable.

We need costings for this- has anyone had a look yet?

The other genius idea was to sell ad space to real companies selling bizarre sex toys etc- anything that fits in with our theme. For this to work we’d need to give away cheap copies of the ‘tome’, so smaller, flimsy ‘zines’.

We need costings for these also.

And leads/numbers for companies that sell weird stuff.

The idea is to then have an exhibition- which will be the second deliverable. Here we can exhibit prints from the ‘tome’, give away/sell postcards, badges and the smaller zines etc. We could also possibly have some readings.

Milos said he could also do some limited edition invites to send to appropriate people and create interest.

The tome will also be available as a PDF online.

A brief will go online sometime today- it’s got its own tab underneath our names here. It needs to get sent out to people asap. The new email address for submissions is youngpines.submissions@gmail.com. I’ll send you the password.

I’m setting up a Facebook and Twitter today and will make you admins/send you the password for the Twitter so we can all post. We need to create real hype around this project for it to work..

The crowdfunding can be set up as soon as we have the brief. Anyone want to do it? i don’t mind if you’re busy, but let me know.

Have I forgotten anything? x

EH

I hadn’t thought of the wood thing, but yes, that’s true. gosh :-) I was kind of thinking about young as in porny young, like ‘young girls’ type thing. It looks quite nice written down. I’ll change the blog title provisionally and if anyone objects we can always change it. We do need to decide asap though as lots of stuff rests on it, ie other work we can do.

Yes, the film is still going on, just thought Milos had been a bit quiet about it- don’t want to plough ahead with something if there’s an objection or if someone has a better idea.

Good idea for getting content.. I’ve had a look at the A5 mag I was telling you about (I’ll bring a couple up on Friday) and they look really nice, glossy etc but won’t work as well if there’s not loads of content, so we really need to push for it. I got a good RT this morning from someone with loads of followers so hopefully that’ll help. This is also why we need to get the name down as then we can whore it on Facebook etc

I’m going to start work on the manifesto words today- any takers for writing them up on the bits of paper?

EH

Young Pines is interesting, like the little nod to Mercy but it also has a bit of the ‘got wood?’ connotation to it (or is it just me that thinks that?!)

Fair enough about the MTG cards, I thought I should throw that idea up there anyway but I see your point, if you’ve never played it, it does take a while to get your head around, and top trumps is much more easily relatable.

Is the filming still going ahead on Friday? I’m completely up for it, the sooner we can get something shot and edited the better.

And about content, I was thinking that we should put up a classified on Art in Liverpool. It’s free and it should hit a pretty big group of people. Once we’ve nailed exactly what we’re after we can get a post drafted and get it up there.

SC

I absolutely love the idea of cards, not sure about classic playing cards but something like top trumps would be amazing, making up the ridiculous feats and bio’s / descriptions for the characters would be dead funny.

But we should deffo have a chat about all of our options on Friday.

M.

Morning guys! I’m away for the rest of the day so I’ll get straight on my page and ideas for the logo first thing tomorrow. I’ve got a few thoughts swishing around for the logo so I’ll get my scribbles uploaded

SC

Ok, here’s some things to think about/do-

1. Do you like the name Apocalypse Wow for the magazine? Any other ideas? also, size? I quite like A5, though it depends how authentic we’re going to go on the porn mag idea.

2. Once we’ve settled on it, I’d like Svea to design us a logo/title. Also, maybe we should have borders throughout the magazine, with the page titles combined where appropriate. (I’ll try and find an example of what I mean) Also, sections, all framed etc so it has a uniform look about it. Basically that’s the design side of things which Svea is good at and will take some work. (These things are hard to convey through words, when we meet we can all scribble on bits of paper which’ll be loads easier).

3. Ask your creative contacts/friends to submit. Svea is setting up a group email address where you can ask people to send stuff to. I’ll forward all the stuff I get to that address so we can see what we’ve got.

4. Think about a manifesto- it doesn’t have to be straight, it could be fantastical or surreal or anything. I could even do it as a poem maybe. Or we could do it as a picture/photographs. Or a film. Actually, a film would be really good wouldn’t it?

5. Can Milos and Svea do their pages or send me stuff to do the pages? I want to start putting our blog around on the internet and getting people interested. It’d be good to see examples of your work too!

6. Crowdfunding- we need to set something up this week.

7. Printing options- I have friends who produce a great magazine The Delinquent. They use Lulu. I’ve also used them too and they’re really good/easy. We could look into costs if you think they look appropriate. Then people have the option to download the magazine too.

8. Playing card ideas/costs- we could use images from the magazine? Or not?

What do you think?

EH

Dead in to the playing cards idea! Brilliant, something for people to keep too. Smashing.

Also I’m up for a printed mag, and even more so with the playing cards along side it too.

MC

LOVE the playing cards idea- really brilliant. Would we make them ourselves or send off images to someone? I guess the former is cheaper? Not sure…

EH

P.S It looks like a print magazine is emerging as the preferred format? what does everyone think? Is it affordable? If we can decide quickly then we can get the crowdfunding stuff going…

I think the idea of mythical creatures, porno mag style, is absolutely brilliant. I keep getting this image of the Kraken bursting out of the sea, holding its boobs and trying to look all seductive…

I can’t wait to get stuck in to this now! Right up my street! (Now I look like a perv…) I quite like the idea of it being printed in mag/zine format, and just think it will help it feel a bit ‘porny’. I keep thinking of Ray Harryhausen’s creatures from Clash Of The Titans (the old 1981 one) and the way they look a bit funny and disheveled. I’m basically looking forward to the chance to draw some mythical pornography. Brill.

I think getting other people involved is a good idea, as we can go to town on content then. I’ll ask around too. Exciting stuff.

Also - loving the Tumblr.

-MC

I’ve decided to take an executive decision (I am just like JR Ewing). I think we should open this up to other people as we need a load of content so I am going to invite my more creative friends to submit and hope you’ll do the same. Then we’ll hopefully have loads of stuff to choose from. I’m a bit concerned about the limited time we have so hope you can do this asap, and stress to people that entries should come in by end of June/mid-July at the latest. Hope you’ll all agree. Still no discussion on format. Who thinks what? It could be something totally different from print or online zine.. we could do an exhibition or anything. Obvs we can talk about this next week, but we need to start thinking about it. The time is pretty limited and if we’re going to do crowdfunding we need to have a clear plan. Thanks!

EH

Hello! So here is the first post.

Here’s the idea I spoke to Nathan about- bear with me, it may sound a bit odd.

I’d like to do a zine in the style of a porno mag, except the subject would be ‘mythical creatures’. I’m thinking about things like fauns, the kraken, mermaids etc, yet represented through images or writing in a really sexy way (maybe re-writings of the greek myths). And a centre page, reader’s wives etc

I thought about making it more erotic than pornography but I think the porn format might be a bit more interesting, otherwise it may end up looking a bit vintage/burlesque/freak show-y and I think that’s been a bit overdone over the last few years.

It’d be good to make it a bit grubby I think, a bit garish. I need to do some research into porn mags if you think it’s a good idea. I quite like the idea of doing it in a 70’s style, that gritty/wicker man/chrome hoof type thing (I hope you know what I’m on about :-)

I think it could look quite beautiful in a strange way.

Originally I was thinking about doing a proper published zine, but the budget possibly wont go that far. I’m open to all ideas on format. Tell me if you think this idea is nuts.

Other considerations-

Are we going to open it up for other people to contribute? We could all do a call for submissions to people we know if so. Deadline end of June? Is that too soon do you think?

Svea mentioned crowdfunding as a way of upping the budget- that sounds like a good idea, if we have time. Does anyone want to set that up?

Svea also mentioned putting together a manifesto- I think that’s a great idea. If everyone can have a think about what could go into it.

EH