Week 11

I have been curious about PR, about what they do and what their importance in a corporation.

So I talked to my new PR and here is what I learn from her:

The first thing a PR do is brainstorming, and then write out working schedule.

Working schedule includes two major things: Logistic and Media.

Event logistic means contacting with third party when there is a conference event. Including reserve an event place, table and stage set up, music setting, event performance...PR has to make sure the product presents in the best state.

Media is another part that PR needs to handle. PR will write the press release, they work with media, however, they are not journalist.

After everything has been listed out, manpower planning is the next step.

Usually the whole project takes one month or less.

Besides product event planning, enhancing corporate image is another job a PR handles. This can be divided into two part: external communication and internal communication.

A role a PR plays is like a bridge between employer and employee and all the stakeholders. A good PR will smooth the relationships among the corporate, and make the corporate image stronger as well.

For our newspaper, News for Chinese, the first thing she does is to enhance the visibility in bay area. She tries to let as many people know about our newspaper as possible. She organized several activities for readers to participate and tried to expose in every media gathering.

In this talk, she is confidence and clear what she is doing. I believe her experience and ability will bring our newspaper to a different level.

Week 10

There is one specific page that is one of our reader's favorite, which is restaurant review. Usually I will contact with the restaurant owner and go to the store with our reporter and try the food. This is one of my favorite time because I get to try the best dish that the chef makes for us to report.

Usually those restaurant will end up putting advertisement in our newspaper.

I found out that if the restaurant has been reported, the business grows up a lot. It is like a product is been proven by an expert. The chance people read the report and visit the restaurant is really high. I personally like to read restaurant review because it usually comes pictures and their commend on the food. I think this is really a smart way to promote their restaurant and our newspaper as well.

week 9

From this month, our PR person proposes a project.

The purpose is to increase the interaction between the readers, customer and the newspaper.

We will organize an activity every month and open to the readers to participate.

This way, our customer will have chance to promote their business directly to the reader, and the reader will have direct information from our customer.

I think it is a good idea to promote our newspaper and our customer's business as well. Really impressive work!!

Week 8

Our newspaper has being published for about one and a half year, and we are going to remodel our website. Today our IT person came to the office and we had a talk.

I will be the one design the website layout and he will take care of the coding part.

I am really excited because this website is going to be popular if we well promote it through our newspaper.

For inspiration, I visit many websites. TW Yahoo is my favorite because it is full of information, however it is not complicated and messy. User friendly and clear navigation is the key.

Week 6 & 7

After newspaper has been released to the public, I am usually the least busy person in the group.

What I usually do at this time is looking for inspiration for the next layout design.

Because we are free newspaper, our income mostly comes from advertising.

So besides art editor, I am also sales.

My boss was working for World Journal for 26 years and is very experienced.

He shows me how to deal with customer and how to communicate with them.

We have to treat ourselves as helper who tries to help customer's business.

Also, we are business consultant who is able to give customer advice how to run their business.

We are looking for win-win relationship.

By doing sales, I have chance to know different kind of business including restaurant, dentist, real estate, insurance...etc. It is good for me because the experience help me on communication and skill of dealing different people and situation.

At the beginning, it is hard for me to talk to a stranger and convince him to put advertise on our newspaper. Practice really helps me on build up confidence. The trick is that the better I know our product, the better the presentation will perform.

Week 5

Since we are bi-weekly newspaper, the newspaper is printed every other week.

This week is the printing week, which means I will be crazy busy.

I have to do the final editing and make sure that everything goes right.

Even a picture is not light enough, or a word spelling wrong will not be acceptable.

Sometimes layout design is ready to print, a update news just suddenly comes out and the whole layout design has to be re-adjusted.

One thing I like in this critical time is that I get a chance to talk to the person who works at printing place. Usually printing a proven newspaper takes 40 minutes and I have nothing to do but wait until it is done. While waiting, I talk to Louise who is the one taking care of our newspaper every time. He is experienced at printing industry, and I usually learn something from him.

He told me how they put different page in printing order, and how they bind the pages all together which is based on the even or odd number.

This is like a break time during this busy period, and I enjoy it.

Week 4

From this week, we got two new colleagues. One is our sales, another is PR.

From what I know, Public Relations (or PR) is a field concerned with maintaining public image for high-profile people, commercial businesses and organizations, non-profit associations or programs. Usually PR people need to be highly active between the organization and the public. They have to pay attention to the trends and provide ideas. Sounds like an interesting field for me.

I am looking forward to see how this new colleague will help our newspaper.

Week 3

Every two weeks, we have newspaper been published. During these two weeks, I usually work on putting news and article into design and layout it before print. Every issue is one project for me, and I appreciate each project that inspires me on new design.

Besides design and layout the paper, I also deal with printing factory. This is also the last step of the project, which is to get a prove print for final checking if everything goes perfectly right. To be honest, I am stressful of being the person who gives the proven to the project that is ready to print. I will have to take the responsibility if the newspaper get something wrong when publishing.

In order to solve the problem, I make a checking list to make sure the date is correct, the picture is right, the font is in shape...This really helps me on decreasing errors.

Assignment 1b (week1-2)

Here are my learning outcomes:

1. Learn Adobe InDesign which is the professional design/layout program that has become the industry standard in print publishing. I will be able to use the program with no problem on making newspaper layout and design.

2. Other than doing art editing, I will also deal with printing matter. Get to know what the printing process is and how newspaper is distributed.

3. I will have to learn how to deal with customers. Familiar with our newspaper and able to present it to the customers. Whenever the customers have questions, I will be able to reply and give feedback.

4. Practice writing. It will be helpful if I can write, because a lot of time I need to fix text to match the layout.

5. Read magazine and other newspaper that will inspire me on design. As an art editor, being creative and with a highly developed visual sense is important.

6. Pay attention to the trend. I will learn website design since E-paper is getting popular. Flash and Dreamweaver are two programs I will be learning. Hopefully I will be able to make my personal website with flash on it.

Assignment 1a (week1-2)

Company's Goal and Vision

I am currently working for a local Chinese newspaper called News for Chinese. It is a start-up company with only a couple people working as full time and about five people working as part time. The office locates in Redwood City, and this is where our newspaper started to distribute-Peninsula. For long time in bay area, even though there are a few small printing media ups and downs, Sing Tao and World Journal newspaper have monopolized the Chinese market. In this circumstance, we come out to give both readers another choice of reading a newspaper and all kinds of business another place to advertise themselves. Our goal is to provide Chinese local-based news, information of life, technology, education, and politics. We try to give the local reader the closest living information, therefore, our vision is to become the most popular local Chinese newspaper in bay area.

SWOT

As I mentioned earlier, Sing Tao and World Journal newspaper are two biggest Chinese newspapers most Chinese read in the bay area. How our newspaper is different from them is that we focus on the local news other than news from Taiwan, Hong Kong or China. Moreover, we are the only free Chinese language community newspaper with separate edition for bay area Peninsula and South/East bay, which means everyone, is available to read our newspaper without paying a cent. We are also the only full color free publication that gives reader a better enjoyment on reading. We have great resources for local news, Chinese language education, personal health, personal life style, home improvement, neighborhood get-away, and much more.

However, we are bi-weekly newspaper; the news in our newspaper might not be as updated as other daily newspapers. Also, we are new to the community, we still need time to let people recognize us and become our royal reader.

Art editor

The primary difference from the traditional newspaper is that our newspaper applies full color and designed layout. We use many pictures and colors to give readers a completely refreshing feeling on a newspaper. As a result, art editor plays an important role in the organization.

As an editor, I am responsible for illustrations and layouts in printed matter. Other than that, the job may cover:

• Making sure the most suitable graphics and photographs are used
• Discussing design and layout ideas with the editor and other colleagues, including freelance writers and proofreaders
• Producing cover designs and inside pages.
• Anticipating trends and setting the newspaper's overall visual style, including design templates.

Specialised computer software is used to design newspaper such as Adobe Photoshop and Adobe InDesign. I will determine the final content of a text and I am also the one who send the final file to the printing and make sure there is no error before it comes out to the public.