What it takes to produce P Magazine
Two months, 18 people, thousands of words and a whole-lot of passion transforms P Magazine from a simple roundtable discussion to a 54-page resource of photos, recipes and industry know-hows. It’s a grueling process of recipe testing, photo shoots and keyboard pounding. The journey is long, but it can be done in 10 steps …
1) About two months before P Magazine reaches your mailbox, PreGel America’s Marketing Department, International Training Center chefs and anyone else in the company with ideas, meet to kick-off the next magazine and brainstorm topics for articles and recipes. This is when we throw EVERYTHING on the table; all ideas welcome. Even the wackiest and far-fetched ideas could make the cut! We then discuss, determine practicality of the articles and vote by majority what makes the issue.
2) After the team decides on which articles will be featured in P Magazine, the contributing writers select the one that they are most passionate about (for me, the photographer, a photo diary seemed like an appropriate choice). Writers usually spend two to three weeks on their articles … or wait until the day before it’s due.
3) While articles are being hammered out upstairs, recipes are being tested and photographed downstairs. The International Training Center chefs spend hours perfecting the crazy recipes thrown at them. Once finalized, chefs bring the finished products to our in-house photo studio for a little modeling session. In addition to dessert photos, we also photograph any image used in P Magazine that supplements the articles.
4) After all of the articles are written, they go to our “red pen” or “tracked-changes” editor, who looks over them with a fine-toothed comb two or three times, making suggestions to achieve the best content.
5) When the editor and writers are all satisfied (and exhausted), the articles go to the designer for layout. It’s his or her job to carefully place every article and photo into the magazine, and the editor assists this process with a tool called pagination. This process usually takes two weeks and results in loss of sleep and/or hair by the designer.
6) It’s back to the editor and even an outsourced proofreader (hey, no one is perfect)! P Magazine is reviewed as a whole – articles and photos together.
7) It’s off to the printer! P Magazine is sent electronically to our printer who runs a test-print and sends us the proofs for one last review.
8) This is one of the most important steps in the creation of P Magazine! Proofing. After the printer sends us high-quality proofs of the magazine, each member of the PreGel America Marketing Team scours every page for any errors. Errors are fixed and 5,000+ copies of P Magazine are ready to be printed!
9) Once printed, P Magazine is mailed out across the country and delivered right to your mailbox.
10) Our team sighs with relief and briefly enjoys the new issue, praying they don’t find a mistake they missed. Then they start brainstorming for the next one! (P.S. This is the constant struggle of marketers, once something is done, you have a thousand ideas on how to improve it.) The issue is also uploaded to our online portal so it is digitally accessible as well.
Each issue of P Magazine has hours upon hours of hard work poured into it. Every word, image and design was crafted with you, the reader, in mind. Be inspired! Sit back, kick your feet up and enjoy …