Hello,
I would like to share my personal impression from the visit of Hearst. Before the class trip, I researched Hearst company and was impressed with all the magazines that they publish. Also I found a lot of interesting information of their website. (http://www.hearst.com)
As I arrived to the destination, I was shocked by the huge building of the Hearst Publisher Company. Lower floor of the building stayed the same from the original building of previous century. 32 floors with new magazine on each floor- seemed to me like a great organization of the space. We went to 11th floor – the place of the production team. We were invited to the conference room where Adam and Phillis explained us the process of arranging the ready magazine pages into a final ready-to-print magazine version. For me, it was very exciting to learn about this process, and how it was done before computers with easy digital abilities. I enjoyed a lot the information I received during this presentation.
Later on, we went to the image editing room, which was dark with neutral grey walls and 5K professional lamps for the daylight effect to proof the colors of printed pages. The presenter in this room showed us how raw images are edited, and so how the editorial work is done in the company. The next was room of final soft and hard magazine proof. I think this room is the most important, since from here the magazine is going to the printer and so the very final version is determined. Michael Patrissi seemed very knowledgeable about the printing proof process and I learned new information.
Also, I have to mention our guide, Chuck, who was very friendly and welcoming and answered all the questions that we had for him. I am very grateful to visit such a big company and take a glance inside the process of creation of many popular glossy magazines, like Cosmopolitan and Harper’s Bazaar. I learned a lot of new things which I did not know before. It was a great tour and I am very happy I joined it!
Thank you