325 in 365

830, a photo by Dubdog@Flickr on Flickr.

McJunk total at end of 2010 = 505
McJunk total at close of 2011 = 830
Hmmmm. McHappy New Year!

McJunk 700

I photographed so much McDonald's litter on the way back from town this morning, that added to what I found on holiday last week, McJunk now totals over 700 on Flickr. Considering that at the turn of this year the total was just over 500, that's some mass littering going on out there.

I haven't scientifically measured my finds but I am noticing more McJunk about. I could draw parallels between this perceived increase in litter and the fact that McDonald's profits are up on last year. This leads me the question whether people are turning to fast food, (and thus cheaper food), as a more regular meal option as their finances are squeezed even further and general food prices rise? Sure, McDonald's are hit by food price increases as well, but they can still provide cheaper food relative to other suppliers because of their business model. I also wonder whether the fact that some children that are fussy eaters are less likely to turn down a trip to the golden arches than they are to waste food put in front of them in the home. If so, this would certainly make McDonald's a more attractive option to cash strapped parents not wanting to see food they've spent money on go in the bin.

Any research you may stumble across relating to this would be greatly received, post URLs as a comment. Thanks.

Links:
McJunk on Flickr
McDonald's profits rise

McBlogged

McJunk is featured on Eye Magazine blog today. Link from here to view.

Strange book

From Keep Britain Tidy on Twitter

McJunk submissions

In order to open up submissions to McJunk, I've created a Tumblr account. If you come across any McJunk on your travels, please feel free to snap away, and then email the results to me. I'll post them to Tumblr once I've optimised shots of online viewing, with full credit and copyright displayed.

McJunk on Facebook will still operate, so feel free to 'like', if you haven't done so already.

Links:
McJunk submissions
McJunk on Facebook

thenetwerk®

McJunk featured on thenetwerk®, a photography research group formed by practitioners/lecturers in East Anglia.

Link:
thenetwerk®

McWordle

McJunk essay copy put through Wordle

First edition

I was relieved to return home to find the first edition of McJunk back from Blurb and all's well. I was slightly concerned that there might be reproduction issues after the 'preview' on Blurb made the book looked muted. So I turned off the preview, not wanting to put off potential buyers, and crossed my fingers.

Well the reproduction is as good as the test prints I got through last month so I'm not sure what's going on with the preview—I shall leave it turned off.

The design decisions I made after the test prints have also paid off. Dropping a couple of pt sizes on the text and knocking it back to 80% black was the right choice, as was removing the Polaroids.



All things considered, I'm generally pleased with the results. Now to save up some money to buy review copies to send out.

For more photos of the book, head over to the McJunk Facebook page.

McJunk is published

Follow link on right hand side of blog to buy.

McJunk website

Link:

McJunk website

McJunk on Facebook

McJunk has finally made it to Facebook. Uploaded already are the original Polaroid photographs that started the whole thing off 10 years ago. This is currently the only place where these are viewable, except the one published here, which is the only Polaroid image to make it into the book after the rest were culled.

Link:

McFacebook

Five hundred plus

As many people opened their presents on Christmas morning, the good people of Ipswich, in association with McDonald's, gave me the gift of allowing McJunk to turn 500. As Claire and I walked Timmy over our local park my trusty camera phone was put to good use documenting this monumental occasion. Check Flickr for images (link right).

Quick book update: every thing is set to go for 1 Jan 2011. More details here soon in the next couple of days as I the finalise promo copy, sort out some postcards and knock up a website.

McHard

I got the hardback McJunk through the post on Thursday. I'm generally really impressed, but test copies always throw up a lot of issues previously unconsidered.



For a start, I've decided to abandon the paperback version. The size of the prints and the overall feel of the book just didn't justify the price I'd have to charge for it. This was made blindingly clear when I held both the hardback and the paperback editions in my hands and I realised a £10 price difference didn't translate into tangible value. There will now only be a promotional paperback version which won't be available to buy.



I'm also rethinking the inclusion of the Polaroid McJunk shots. They may be axed or included in with the introduction text.

Layout and type size issues are bothering me and the bleed on the endpapers is a disaster. Even though I've artworked correctly, it appears I'm not going to be able to trust Blurb's print registration so this needs a rethink also (see below). There are numerous other details I won't go into here.

Needless to say this is pushing the publication date back even further, but this is no bad thing as we approach the end of the year and I'm thinking a 2011 release date could play into my hands as far as publicising the book anyway. I'm now aiming for a release date of 01 Jan 11.

Anyway, I've had some invaluable feedback from those whose opinions I trust enough to show this too in the flesh at this formative stage. So thanks Russell, Dave, Heike, Matt, Ken and obviously Claire, my most astute critic without whom I'd never formulate my half baked ideas into fully formed content.

Blurb deliver

A test print of the paperback of McJunk is back and it has provoked much thought, as well as much marker pen action over glossy pages.

The print quality, for what it is, I'm impressed by - and I'm pretty choosy. However, I'm now having an internal debate about charging £20 for a 40 page paperback book. I'm on the verge of cancelling the paperback, except for promotional copies.

I now can't wait to see the hardback, which should arrive tomorrow.

Mwunk

Things have been incredibly busy for the last few weeks day job wise, so the progress on McJunk hasn't been as rapid as I would have hoped, but there is progress. This chipping away at little jobs is at least making some headway.

The folios are now done for both Large and Regular versions. A Sunday morning of RSI inducing cutting, pasting and editing sorted that one out. It took an age for the registration of my first ISBN to appear on the Nielson UK ISBN Agency online publishing service, but it's there now (after an email prompt yesterday). Somehow the title was changed to 'Mwunk' somewhere between me sending the forms off and a Nielson employee inputting the data, so I've had to update that. I have also now applied to assign my next ISBN number to McJunk Regular, something I couldn't do until the first title appeared online. Here's hoping both these won't take too long. I don't know whether Nielson have a priority system, and I'd understand if they did, considering they deal with all UK publishers and Dubdog is small fry, but time will tell.

In updating the details on their site, I discovered there is a BIC Subject Categories scheme for the UK book trade which classifies publications into subject areas. I was pleased to find that there is a specific code for Graphic Design. It is AKC in case you were wondering and I've now assigned it to McJunk.

So, once these are through (could be a 2 week wait, again), then I can get some ISBN barcodes. I'll then be ready to upload to Blurb, get proof copies and see this thing in the flesh at last. That's if I can settle on that tricky last paragraph.

Finally, this project had its first public outing after I gave a presentation about my design practice to final year graphic design students at UCS last Friday. I showed sample InDesign spreads and read them three paragraphs of text. Thankfully they were gentle on me.

978-0-9567146

I'm one step closer to adding a publishing wing to Dubdog as I received my ISBN prefix through today. I've never, ever been so excited about numbers as I was when I got the email earlier today, being math phobic as I am. I now have an Excel file, (something else that is rare) with 10 shiny ISBN numbers awaiting something to be attached to them.

Next up is registering with Nielsen's online publishing service, which carries a 5 day wait, so I can register the paperback version of McJunk with its own ISBN.

As for the book itself, I've been refining the introduction again. It was my colleague Dave who told me that 'writing is rewriting', and how true he is. It is definitely improving with each draft and I'm pretty much there with most of it, except for the last paragraph that is. This I'm really not happy with at the moment but I'm fairly certain I'm within grasp of nailing it.

Lastly, I imported the text into the InDesign file yesterday and was relieved that the text still fits the space allocated for it despite these umpteen rewrites.

ISBNed

The current incarnation of the McJunk (large) cover, subject to change.

McJunk is a step closer to publication now that I've actually ordered ISBN numbers for it. I say 'numbers' because as a new publisher I can't buy a single ISBN, but have to order a batch of 10. As I'm publishing two versions of McJunk, I'll have to find eight other books to publish under the Dubdog moniker to use up the remaining ISBNs. Hmmm, I feel an anthology of Bum Gravy and Pindown lyrics coming on. Or maybe not.

The two versions will be:
McJunk (large), 200 x 250mm, hardback, 80pp, full page photographs printed on premium paper.
McJunk (regular), 200 x 250mm, paperback, 40pp, multiple photographs to a page, paper as yet undecided.

The large version will obviously be of superior quality and cost considerably more than the regular version. It will also be deleted after an as yet undecided number of sales.


Imprint page awaiting ISBN number

Once the ISBNs are through, there are barcodes to order, and then I'm pretty much ready to publish after a final proof read, sorting the folios and ordering a proof copy from Blurb.

As in previous posts about McJunk I've decried the slow progress of this publication. So I've decided smaller, but more regular bursts of activity are much more likely to get this project completed while I've got other more important responsibilities to deal with (i.e. paid work).

Updates to follow as progress advances.

Surge

426

As the McJunk book nears its final stages, (fifth rewrite, second and third reader checks to arrange, finalising layout and folio decisions, selection of the cover shot to make, etc), there's been a huge increase in the number of views of recent uploads of the project on Dubdog@Flickr. The piece above, '426', has had 95 views since posting 5 days ago.

This probably isn't a great deal for many Flickr users, but it is for me. I usually only attract 4 or 5 hits on shots of locational typography. This occasionally increases if I include profanities or sex and conspiracy theory related words in my tagging.

I've submitted, via requests, to a few Flickr groups recently and this probably accounts for the increase in activity. This is a great incentive for pushing on with the book which keeps taking a back seat to the day job. I might even get some sales at this rate.

That said, there might just be one person who has looked at '426' 95 times!

McJunk: the book, 80 pages of graphic design introspection and pictures of McDonald's litter, will be published via blurb.com, August 2010.

Links:

McJunk

Blurb.com

400 +

Coming in 2010: McJunk, the book

More details: McJunk