As part of our end semester practical for our Print paper in college, we had to divide the class into three groups and each bring out an issue of a newspaper which has traditionally been called ‘The Fine Print’, and has 8 pages.

For starters, it was like we were thrown into the deep end. We had to find sponsors, decide what articles to write, decide who played what role, find a printer, negotiate a deal – and we had barely a month and a half to do this. We also knew that we had end semester exams looming ahead of us, and so we were resolved to finish a majority of the work before then.

And so, we began. Each group consisted of 10 people, and we decided to start off by looking at who to target the paper at. Almost all of us agreed that we’d want to target the under 25 crowd, consisting of college kids, young professionals who are just starting out. We steered clear of targeting just the college crowd, because that would be a limiting factor when it came to distribution later on. Then came the matter of who would write what, and what other roles had to played. People volunteered to be editors, to be in charge of layout and design. We all wanted to write, so everybody played that role.

The next step was to plan out what pages we wanted to include. Based on this, my group came up with the following :

• The Front Page
• Reviews
• In the City
• Life
• Fitness and Games
• Campus
• Fun Page
• Back Page

Let me just say here, that there were a LOT of changes before we finally decided on which pages we wanted. There were some amazing article ideas that had to be scrapped because we felt that they didn’t ‘fit’ on any page! Anyway, after deciding what articles would go on what page, the writing began.

I was one of three editors, and though I might have lost my mind at a couple of points, my team kept me on track! All of us were adamant that we wanted this paper to stay interesting at all points, and I think we managed that The people who handled the layout and getting of sponsors did an excellent job and at the end of the day, I think we pretty much kicked ass!

We aim to distribute the paper in the city once we find restaurants/shops/people who wouldn’t mind keeping some copies for people to pick up, so once we find those, I will update this post with more information.

Also on behalf of the team I’d like to thank our sponsors : Paul and Menzel Design Studio, Koshy’s, Emerald Isle Hotel and Resort, Party Mania Store.