We welcome contributions from all phases and sectors of art, craft and design education.
AD house-style guidelines
Please follow these AD house-style guidelines when submitting copy for AD magazine:
1. Dates: Centuries should be expressed in full e.g. twenty-first century (all lowercase). Write specific dates like this 4 January 2020.
2. Spacing: Use only one space after all full stops. e.g. The sentence finally ended. It was timely.
3. Abbreviations: Do not use full stops in abbreviations - such as NSEAD - except in the common Latin
abbreviations such as i.e., e.g., etc.
4. Capital Letters: Do not use unnecessary capital letters. Words like government, art and design,
head of art, do not require them. But a specific title, such as Rector of the Royal College of Art, does.
5. Italics and underlines: Only italicise for emphasis or for exhibition titles, books, newspaper, film,
artwork or music titles. Do not underline any text.
6. Web addresses: Avoid using the prefix ‘www’ for web addresses e.g. nsead.org For AD,
at the end of your article or feature, we can publish one web address, Twitter or Instagram and one email (see #12 below). Please provide these if required.
7. Numbers: Spell out numbers from one to ten like this. Use figures for numbers from 11 upward.
8. Per cent signs and words: Use ‘per cent’ in text; use the symbol % in tables
9. Quotation marks: Use single quotation marks ‘for all quoted matter of a sentence’ like this,
except for quotes within quotes, ‘where “double quotation marks” should be used’ like this.
10. English Spellings: English spelling conventions should be followed in the text (e.g. colour not color,
centre not center, programme not program, organise not organize, etc.).
11. Ages and learning phases: Whenever possible refer only to students’ ages (e.g. age 14-16) rather than
their year group or learning phase (e.g. First year, S1, year 1; key stage 1). If the phase name cannot be
avoided, use the phase followed by the age range in brackets e.g. Key stage 3 (age 11-14).
12. Contact details: Note at the end of your article a contact name, email or web address. If you do not wish these additional details to be included, omit this information and no details will be published.
For AD magazine please note your job title and if appropriate your place or work – this will be useful for your article's standfirst
13. Footnotes: Only use footnotes if essential. Instead try to quote authors within your article. However, a max of two foot notes can be used – please state the reference, author, publisher and year.
As AD is a magazine, (a max of two footnotes can be added).
14. Copy length for articles proposals and articles: Draft article proposals should be 200 words; Articles, features and interviews are mostly between 500-900 words. Please aim to keep to any agreed copy length (e.g. 800-1000 words) when submitting your articles.
NSEAD reserves the right to copy edit and make changes to AD articles.
Please contact info@nsead.org if you have any queries regarding this guide.
Click here to download this guidance as a .pdf
Please send your article proposal or completed article to the editor of AD: sophieleach@nsead.org
Images
For all AD magazine articles please supply 5-6 images. If we need more, for example for interviews, lead articles and features, we will advise you. For these we require 6-8 high res images.
Image resolution
As a general rule we ask:
1. Please send the very biggest file you have, or ensure the image is 300dpi+
2. For very small head shot-sized images we need 599kb+. For anything bigger, at least 1MB. For 2-3-page features, where we use larger images (800 words and above), we ideally need 4-5MB for photo sizes (or 300dpi).
We may not be able to use or publish any images below this. Images that are 72dpi and small in size, for instance, would probably be unsuitable for reproduction on the page.
For NSEAD web/online screen publications 72-150dpi is generally needed.
Image captions:
Please write suggested captions on a separate word doc. Please remember to list both the photograph name (as listed for example on the jpeg file) and its proposed caption. This will ensure our designers are able to identify the photograph and its intended caption. Please aim to keep all captions as short as possible.
When and if appropriate please add the photographer's name '© xxx'
Below is an example of how we try to set out our captions for public works:
Fig. 1
Leon Kossoff
Outside Kilburn Underground, 1966
Charcoal on paper, 161⁄2 × 22 inches (42 × 56 cm)
Private collection
That is:
Name
Name of work in italics
Materials and/or size
© Copyright/Collection
Copyright and permissions:
Please ensure that if you are sharing any image showing a student's face that you have sought photographic permission to do so.
If you are using any artwork made by your students, an artist, maker or designer, please ensure that permission or copyright has been agreed and checked, and if appropriate, NSEAD is given the artist's and/or photographer's name to credit.
Copyright and the sharing of AD:
Please do not share the NSEAD's link to the electronic version of AD or your article anywhere online. Please feel free to take images of your article but please ensure that only the first 200 words approx max can be read. All non-member authors will be given an author copy. Additional copies can also be purchased but please note some AD's have sold out within a very short time.
Notes for new authors:
The following guidelines are intended only as a guide for new authors seeking to write a case study for AD.
In your article try to describe:
The context
Where are you based (e.g. name and location of school, university or gallery); How is the curriculum delivered in your setting? Did more than one age or year group take part in the project?
What you hoped to achieve by the project or curriculum activity
Why did you decide to focus on this activity? What were the objectives?
Organisation of learning
Who was involved? Did learners work in groups as well as individually? Was any special materials and equipment required? Were there any other artists/makers/designers involved? Were outside agencies involved? Were there any external visits?
Summarise the approach and strategy used to deliver the content
How was the project introduced and organised? What ideas, materials, technologies and practical activities were introduced, and why?
How was the project organised?
Some readers may wish to try out what you did, so a description of the stages that the project went through can be helpful.
Description of the outcomes /analysis of the project
How and why was this project successful?
What, if anything, would you do differently if you repeated it?