Editor of T’Hud Magazine 2012 – 2014
During my first year at University I became a regular contributor to the campus magazine, The Huddersfield Student, which was low quality, editorially unfocused, poorly designed and didn’t capture the imagination of its student audience. I felt I could improve its output and after campaigning was elected as Editor in March 2012.
I spent the months that followed researching and planning a rebrand, redesign and editorially shift for the publication. Called T’Hud, the magazine output was refocused to be informal and honesty about student lifestyle, events on campus and the
local community.
The response was immediate, the magazine readership doubled, more contributors came forward to write, the Students’ Union improved the quality of the paper stock and the magazine made more advertising money than it had previously. My efforts were recognised at the end of the year when I was awarded ‘Media Personality of The Year’ by the Union.
Although the year had been positive, I felt there was much more work to do – during the transitions between past editors, the magazine had no online presence, was not engaged on social networks properly and despite the redesign, improvements were needed – and March 2013 I was re-elected as editor.
Since then, I have created a new set of social networking pages and an industry standard WordPress site: www.t-hud.co.uk and we have refreshed the magazines design to sit somewhere between the award winning Edge and student favour Company. Resulting in the Students’ union commissioning a small team to produce a new starters issue to be produced during the summer of 2013.
Although voluntary, I spend a considerable amount of time on the job. It has improved my management and team building skills, as contributors are frequently late or have differing opinions that need to be reconciled. It has also taught me the value of operating an open door policy to both contributors and an audience and I personally respond to issue that readers have with any stories or requests to become involved with magazine.
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