Yuki Kajiura Birthday Project 2012

[Hime_Wakana]

ok!!

 

[FxMacCobra]

Re: Re:

Like what George has mentioned, English is still going to be our primary language for the project. So, no worries there.

RAW format is not exactly encouraged because the editors may not have the necessary viewers or the image processors to read certain brand-specific RAW formats (like NEF and ORF).

However, the common/open lossless extensions such as TIFF, GIF and PNG are encouraged.

Ok, I get it!

 

[tsubasa]

Re:

What programs are we going to need to make it (arrange articles and images within the magazine's pages etc) is MS Office (& Open, Libre) kind of programs enough , and who is going to do that?

they can also Use Google Docs (now named Google Drive)

 

[Special_K]

Re: Re:

What programs are we going to need to make it (arrange articles and images within the magazine's pages etc) is MS Office (& Open, Libre) kind of programs enough , and who is going to do that?

they can also Use Google Docs (now named Google Drive)

I think George is referring to the final compositing/layout of the articles.

For that, Google Drive isn't going to cut it.

Links to a Google Drive document for plain text is acceptable, though.

 

[george1234]

^ Yes I was referring to the programs needed throughout the preparation of the magazine.

 

[LianaIlia36]

For the recipe I would like to submit 2 pics of the meal (one in a pan and then one on a plate) if that is all right. I will keep the pics to the minimum size. And I was going to submit one fan art. Now I just have to write what I am going to say. Do I submit all of it to you Special K?

 

[tsubasa]

oh sorry..



also its also might better if you put ypur layouts are MS Publisher

 

[KONIcchi]

I'm slo~~~~~w. Almost missed out.

I.. dont understand the project yet. Will read this entire thread at home

 

[wormbook22]

I've just finished reading all 21 pages in this thread since I don't want to miss out anything important...
Somehow I feel that some info about this "operation" is not clear, or maybe I was just confused after reading so many posts. Anyway, it's just my personal opinion but members who haven't seen this thread may have to read all 21 pages again like me (not to mention that many ppl would skip all the way to the 21st page and couldn't understand a thing about the project). It's really a waste of time and may lower the participants for the project itself. Also, since I found some unclear info, I've summed up info from the previous pages. Below this summary are some questions and suggestions.
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Main points:
Idea: make a “cookbook” entitled “Food Book” (all members can participate) since YK said she likes ... eating
• Many ideas has been suggested for YK’s BD 2012 in previous threads and pages but the final decision was to make a cookbook. Other ideas will be used for a bigger project: her 50th birthday.
• Basically, each member of CPM can participate by writing articles about 2 pages long about your country’s best traditional food to serve as a guide for YK when she visits yr country (you may also use this tempt YK to visit your country )
• YK will receive CPM's cookbook in August (hard copy, not sent by Internet)
• Member's article may include recipes, pictures of food or fan art, a sumary about the food in the article, etc. (I don’t know if there’s anything else here)
• Primary language: English and/or Japanese
• Available text format: .doc, google docs, anything in plain text since editors will do sth about them later.
• Available picture format: .gif, .png, .tiff, .jpeg (read the details below for further info) Anyway, foods' picture can be taken from handmade stuff or from the Internet.
• Deadline for members: at the end of June.

Details:
From Special_K (current editor-in-chief):

To keep things simple, I think it's fair to aim for somewhere between 80 to 150 pages (since we're ad-free, or we can use member-submitted fan art as "ads"), double-sided on glossy paper (like in the Kala photobooks) and perfect bound with a 120gsm paper/thin cardboard cover. Please work on the assumption that everything will be in colour first. I can also help with printing if the design is simple enough.
I'll leave the option of whether we want edge-to-edge printing open for now, though.
So, to fill those pages, we'll be looking at these:

• Table of contents
• Kera's message (half to one page affair)
• Feature-length articles (4-6 sub-editors required. Sub-editors to decide the content and language for users to submit to. Minimum 6-pages each. Ideally, at least one of these articles should be in Japanese.)
• Short articles like individual recipes, reviews of restaurants in certain key cities, food reviews, health/wellness tips (about 40 to 50 individual articles, one per member. About 2 pages) (2 editors and at least one Japanese language expert required here, mainly to screen for errors and edit or to make sure the content is acceptable for print)
• letters to YK (self-explanatory, one editor and a Japanese language expert needed here, should be a one page affair using 8/9 pt font)
• editorials (for us "staff" members to write , peer edited)

--------------------------------------------
IMPORTANT:

• All the articles will be in English or Japanese (if you are up to the task).
• For people submitting pictures in their articles, please make sure they are at least visible at 300dpi printing (900 x 600 for a 3"x 2" picture). For full page pictures (for example, to be used as the background to an article), please work with a minimum of 3000 x 4000 pixels.
• JPG pictures are allowed, but the resolution must be at least twice the minimum requirement.

(My apology to Special_K since I cut a few parts from yr post :P
And there's a chance that I've missed something important in the summary above. If there's any mistakes, plz tell me to correct it.)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
• Well, first, about the cookbook's subject. Someone (sorry, I don't remember his/her name) said that tips on how to take care of yrself, relax,... and restaurant reviews shouldn't be included the cookbook. However, I don't remember seeing anyone agreeing or disagreeing this. So are we gonna including this in the book or not?
• The book's name is still "Food book", right? I saw many ppl suggest other names but there was no agreement in using them.
• Many names of ingredients and dishes have no equivalent in English. Should we use their original name in the article and explain (Ex: "bánh dày" is a kind of Vietnamese sticky rice cake), or should we translate their names to nearly equivalent words?
• Now, onto my suggestions for the project. First, i think we need to put participating members in teams according to which nation's food they're going to write about. Then, the most experienced one with computer, English (or Japanese) and that country's food will be chosen by the group as the sub-editor of that group (we can also choose anyone who volunteers). If we don't hurry up and make small groups at this point, there won't be enough time to find enough sub-editors, since not many ppl want to do this kind of stuff.
• Second, we should make a Google group, or at least an email address where members and sub-editors can send their work to the main editors.
• Third, in the cookbook, the foods in the "short article" session should be cartegorized by their country. The book wouldn't serve its original purpose (a guidebook) otherwise.
(EDIT: it's better if you read the whole page 21 of this thread, not just this summary since most of my questions have been answered)

 

[george1234]

Thanks for making this summary, wormbook22! and Welcome to the forum. I shall answer to some of your points.

• Well, first, about the cookbook's subject. Someone (sorry, I don't remember his/her name) said that tips on how to take care of yrself, relax,... and restaurant reviews shouldn't be included the cookbook. However, I don't remember seeing anyone agreeing or disagreeing this. So are we gonna including this in the book or not?

^ It was me that said that opinion, SP K replied, but I stil dont like them to be included, we better stick with food (unless there's some kind of specialist on relaxation techniques that could write a related article instead.)

• The book's name is still "Food book", right? I saw many ppl suggest other names but there was no agreement in using them.

Yes, deciding the name will probably be the last thing to do, since the others are the priority.

• Many names of ingredients and dishes have no equivalent in English. Should we use their original name in the article and explain (ex: it's a kind of Vietnamese rice cake), or should we translate their names to nearly equivalent words?

That's right, we will need to write the orginal names, providing they are used like that in english too, for example, the greek cheese Feta, doesnt have equalevant but you can see it around written like that.

• Now, onto my suggestions for the project. First, i think we need to put participating members in teams according to which nation's food they're going to write about. Then, the most experienced one with computer, English (or Japanese) and that country's food will be chosen by the group as the sub-editor of that group (we can also choose anyone who volunteers). If we don't hurry up and make small groups at this point, there won't be enough time to find enough sub-editors, since not many ppl want to do this kind of stuff.

Agree, but in some cases where not many people are from specific countries, it wont be possible to make a team (eg: from Greece are only me and Yuki_n and 2 other girls that no more visit oftenly)
so we might need to form 2 tips of teams, one type will be according to the country, and the other from various countries from where are not many members, or a country we have too many members from, they cant possible form only 1 team.

• Second, we should make a Google group, or at least an email address where members and sub-editors can send their work to the main editors.
• Third, in the cookbook, the foods in the"short article" session should be cartegorized by their country. The book wouldn't serve its original purpose (a guidebook) otherwise.

Agreeing.

 

[Special_K]

The trouble with most commercial email addresses is that they tend to be very bandwidth/capacity-restricted unless you are using a paid service.

I'll want to avoid this as much as possible while we actually have a good message board system here where we can use (along with cloud services for photo storage).

Which is why I propose that submitting your articles here would be a good idea instead. (Just a simple plain text document with links to picture attachments, including those that you think would make good stock/background images. If you have access to an advanced compositor like Adobe InDesign or MS Publisher, you could send us a copy of the project file/folder also. Although I would worry about the quality of the final renderings of some of them.)

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Regarding the content, I was thinking a purely food magazine might be a bit difficult due to the perceived overall monotony of the content. So by including other (I emphasise) **related** bits in, it would help spice up the content and the retaining value.

Of course, this depends on whether the rest of you are up for it. Basically, it doesn't have to be difficult (such as prescribing techniques for ayurveda, which is probably way beyond the capabilities of anyone here).

Simpler topics like certain food and lifestyle choices to avoid when putting in late nights, what do you like to do/go when you go for short breaks after a major project, 5 things you can do with avocado, or simply tips for desk-bound techniques for instant relaxation would all suffice.

This is because, as I understand, Japanese people in general are very big consumers of lifestyle services and products (such as visiting an onsen on weekends) and they love exchanging tips on these. So it can still be very casual and fun writing these articles as it still retains a quite personal touch. I don't intend these to be take up the bulk of the content, too (about 5 to 8 is just about right for the entire magazine). So no worries that the whole magazine is going to end up into a "standard" lifestyle magazine - it would still be food-related for the most part.

----------------------------------

Also guys, please note that I'll am away for pretty much the whole month of June although I'll try my best to respond to this thread as much as I can. So please expect my responses to be rather sporadic (about once every few days or so). I basically cannot expect to have an internet connection throughout my itinerary.

 

[Hime_Wakana]

Also guys, please note that I'll am away for pretty much the whole month of June although I'll try my best to respond to this thread as much as I can. So please expect my responses to be rather sporadic (about once every few days or so). I basically cannot expect to have an internet connection throughout my itinerary.

No problem *________*

 

[LianaIlia36]

I was going to put the pics into photobucket and then send them to whover, would that be you Special K?

 

[george1234]

@ SP K: Sud fixed the limit in pm recipients so I will tomorrow sned the massive PM asking people if they want to join the project. So when you will leave for your destination, just to help me program things out (day plz).

 

[tsubasa]

hmm...if we have problem with number of participants with each country, maybe each team should be grouped by continent instead.

so we will be efficient with man porwer.

 

[wormbook22]

The trouble with most commercial email addresses is that they tend to be very bandwidth/capacity-restricted unless you are using a paid service.

I'll want to avoid this as much as possible while we actually have a good message board system here where we can use (along with cloud services for photo storage).

I agree. But should we make a new thread for members submitting their articles to avoid confusion? (this thread currently has 314 posts already)

Regarding the content, I was thinking a purely food magazine might be a bit difficult due to the perceived overall monotony of the content. So by including other (I emphasise) **related** bits in, it would help spice up the content and the retaining value.

Of course, this depends on whether the rest of you are up for it. Basically, it doesn't have to be difficult (such as prescribing techniques for ayurveda, which is probably way beyond the capabilities of anyone here).

Yeah, I agree. I'll try to include these tips in my article if there's enough space left. It's kinda funny but my country has too many kinds of good food to choose from. When I think about cakes alone, there are about ... 50 to 100 kinds of cakes unique to only Vietnam (I'm not joking here), some of which I've never even tasted, so actually recommending something will be really tricky.

Agree, but in some cases where not many people are from specific countries, it wont be possible to make a team (eg: from Greece are only me and Yuki_n and 2 other girls that no more visit oftenly)
so we might need to form 2 tips of teams, one type will be according to the country, and the other from various countries from where are not many members, or a country we have too many members from, they cant possible form only 1 team.

You're right. When I saw CPM's gift to YK in 2008, only 2 of the messages to her were from Vietnam, and that was in 2008!! (Hope Vietnamese members increased since that time)

hmm...if we have problem with number of participants with each country, maybe each team should be grouped by continent instead.

so we will be efficient with man porwer.

It's a good idea but if a group is too big, the sub-editors may not be able to handle that much work. And besides, the big cultural difference may cause trouble for the editors. And, if we divide participants into 5 big groups by their continent, then divide big groups into smaller groups by country, the countries which lie between 2 continents (like Russia) will have trouble choosing sides. We may still be able to use this idea if we think harder, though ^^

But then, how do we make a list of participating members and countries? Should we make a list with Google Drive and have members fill in it? If we do that, after a certain period (like 1 week before July), we'll divide everyone into groups according to the conditions you mentioned above and let ppl in those group discuss --> choose their sub-editors.

 

[george1234]

I will make a massive pm to members that haven't replied on this thread yet, and ask them if they are interested in joining, with them replying it here, so then we will be able to make that list.

 

[Special_K]

Yeah, I agree. I'll try to include these tips in my article if there's enough space left. It's kinda funny but my country has too many kinds of good food to choose from. When I think about cakes alone, there are about ... 50 to 100 kinds of cakes unique to only Vietnam (I'm not joking here), some of which I've never even tasted, so actually recommending something will be really tricky.

Try to aim for depth rather than width, wormboook. Pick on a single topic you wish to write on and focus solely on it (eg. cakes is cakes only, spa is spa only. Don't mix.). The last thing we'll want is a highly disjointed article that looks more like a personal letter to YK in third person prose.

hmm...if we have problem with number of participants with each country, maybe each team should be grouped by continent instead.

so we will be efficient with man porwer.

I don't think I want to make a big issue about the "country" representation for now. If we do this right, we might actually have a rather balanced input representation based on country later.

Remember, quality first, people!

I will make a massive pm to members that haven't replied on this thread yet, and ask them if they are interested in joining, with them replying it here, so then we will be able to make that list.

Noted. If you can help get hold of Kerachan for me, please. It would be nice to make an announcement on the front page as well too. If you have doubts about the wording of the announcement, feel free to PM me or drop me an email at: audio_KARZ (at) hotmail.com. (I've put in the spaces to prevent any form of spamming. So please don't go and circulate this around unnecessarily!

 

[george1234]

Noted. If you can help get hold of Kerachan for me, please. It would be nice to make an announcement on the front page as well too. If you have doubts about the wording of the announcement, feel free to PM me or drop me an email at:

The point of the pm messaging is to learn if the people interested that havent seen the thread yet are enough to make the project possible, a post on the mainsite will be needed only if they are not enough.

 

[tsubasa]

^

I think that's not wise george