In some ways, closing day is the day you have to be the most “on”
When people ask me to describe how a magazine is made, I divide the process into three stages: the creative stage, the processing stage, and the closing stage. While that last stage seems like an automatic process — just send all those ready files to print — closing day is actually a very intense day with a whole new set of decisions and considerations. In some ways, it’s the day you have to be the most “on.”
The captains of the closing process are the production managers. They manage the traffic syncing between the various teams, the printers, the content, and the clock. The pressure is constant, and the details are numerous. No matter what your level of authority, on a closing day you defer to their timetable.
The first decision on a closing day is which pieces will actually make it into the magazine. That’s more complicated than it sounds, because the final page count of our magazines is only settled once the deadline for ads has passed. A magazine that has more ads will also have more content. This means that in addition to the time-based, current material that absolutely must be printed in a specific issue, we also have pieces of different sizes waiting in the wings. We call these pieces “evergreens” — they never get stale and always add a bit of freshness and interest no matter what the week. And when we find out that the magazine will be bigger than anticipated, those pieces fill the extra space perfectly.
Once the final lineup has been determined, it’s time to create a grid — a chart on which every item in the magazine is assigned a specific page number. This means a whole new set of decisions. Which goes first — a breaking news story, or a feature about a prominent Torah personality? Should we break up the heavier material with a light story, or progress from more serious to more fun? Which pieces will get broken by full-page ads, and which can accommodate smaller ads?
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