I was asked to rewrite all the content on the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) website ahead of its relaunch. Much of the existing text was filled with acronyms and jargon and impossible for a layperson to understand. I simplified the text as much as possible and worked with UNCCD staff to ensure a coherent narrative flow and that this new simplified writing style would be used in the future.

www.unccd.int

I was hired to write the official guidebook for Expo 2020. Working with a UK-based publisher, I worked with the Expo team to ensure the finished product met expectations in terms of tone, writing quality and editorial focus.

The role involved multiple rewrites and multiple meetings with internal and external Expo stakeholders. This role was a balancing act: part writing, part client services and part editor - a challenging but rewarding role.

I launched a climate action blog for UN Climate Change, the United Nations’ climate change division. I came up with a concept, tone of voice and scope, and work with internal and external stakeholders and to choose and execute stories in varied formats. I also created an editorial calendar and tone of voice, and had to quickly understand a variety of often complex topics.

www.unfccc.int/blog

I interviewed more than 60 editors, designers and magazine makers around the world for this guide to indie publishing. From marketing and building an audience to design, photography and commissioning writers, this is the ultimate guide to making your own magazine. 

You can read some of the coverage the book got below:

Stack Magazines
YCN
Monocle
The Irish Times
The Sunday Business Post
Issuu
Totally Dublin 

Or, even better, buy a copy here.

The brief was to create a magazine that reflected Jumeirah’s new tone: focusing on art, food and the group’s exceptional service. Working with the designer Olga Petroff, we created an understated product that used lots of white space and was printed on thick matt paper.

There is no hard sell here: this is a magazine that’s there to be read, and shared.

You can see the first issue here.

I launched a magazine for Ireland’s leading hospitality group, Press Up, which owns more than 30 bars, restaurants and hotels across the country. I created the editorial calendar, wrote the content, designed the page and worked with the client to ensure the magazine met their marketing needs as well as appealed to their hotel guests.

I remotely edited Emirates’ first and business class magazine, Portfolio. I came up with every feature and front of book idea every issue. I created a freelancer list and commissioned the features and wrote most of the front of book.

I also art directed many of the pages, sourced the photos and line-edited each article.

Emirates Airlines had a problem. Its in-flight magazine, Open Skies, was not as it could be: dull and formulaic, I was hired by Dubai-based Motivate Publishing to re-invent the in-flight magazine and make it the best in the world. 

I art-directed each issue, using colourful illustrated graphics, commissioned the writers and photographers and sub-edited every issue before sending to press. 

The magazine won a number of awards, more awards than the publishing company had won in its previous 25-year history. 

I was approached to come up with a magazine for Al Ghurair Centre, Dubai’s first shopping mall. At the time, it was languishing behind the city's bigger malls, so as part of a rebrand, I was asked to create a new type of mall magazine - one that focused on the culture and the heritage of the area, as well as the products in the stores. 

I designed the magazine from scratch: emphasising bold colours, iPhone photography and quirky, compelling articles. I commissioned, edited and produced every issue. 

Bored with the glossy, PR-laden travel magazines that dominated the newsstands in Dubai in 2012, I decided to set up my own. The idea was to focus on the granular, rather than the glossy, and on stories rather than on things to see and do. I hired local writers, took all the photographs on my phone and designed the magazine myself. 

The first issue focused on Dubai and after it sold out I decided to publish another one. This fell foul of the censors however, and after losing all my advertising, I set up a successful Kickstarter campaign to raise money for the printing. 

The final We Are Here focused on Kathmandu. There may well be another We Are Here in the future, so watch this space. 

I set up a quarterly lo-fi magazine that aimed to cover Dublin a new way. I wrote, edited and designed the magazine as well as handled distribution, production and marketing.

I was asked to publish a book for two writers who wanted to chronicle the country's sea swimming spots. I wanted to move away from the often twee representation of the Irish countryside and designed a more modern book with lots of full-bleed imagery, fifth colour and white on black text. The book was a huge success and sold out in a week.

I also took some of the photographs, edited the writing and designed the process. 

Wndr Kabul was the first mobile application guide to the Afghan capital. Featuring interactive maps, videos, photography, news feeds and book reviews, it was downloaded more than 10,000 times and was available for Android and iPhone.

 https://www.facebook.com/wndrkabul

With Dubai's bookshops full of traditional guides to the city (aerial shots of sand dunes, camels, men in traditional dress), I decide to publish something that reflected that life was really like in the city. 

The book features fifty things that make the city what it is, from brunches and boot camps to Jumeirah Janes and cabin crew, and is beautifully illustrated. 

I suggested to the editors at the Khaleej Times that their weekly magazine could do with a revamp – less PR-generated guff, service journalism and more long-form features, more humour and more in-depth front of book pieces. Surprisingly they agreed and event let me come up with a new title (wknd. from Weekend) and a new design. I wanted to keep the covers minimal, and, as we were not on the newsstand, lose most of the cover lines. 

I commissioned articles, art-directed the redesign, sub-edited the copy and worked with production to ensure the magazine came out on time with the Friday newspaper every week. 

I had a great time working on the project, but sales wanted more features on jewellery and beating belly fat, and when management agreed, I decided to quite while I was ahead. A great experience and I am proud of the issues myself and a small team put together.

Welcome to our page! Ngaire and Conor are starting to restore a 300-year old cottage in Glenade, Leitrim, in an ancient glacial valley in Ireland’s northwest.

This will be a long job as we aim to modernise without sacrificing the cottage’s traditional charm; keeping as much of the historic interior as we can, and protecting the surrounding ecosystem.

This will be our family home - with vegetable gardens, native woodland and stream, chickens, bees, and starry night skies.

If you would like to donate to this project as a wedding gift, that would be very much appreciated - see the details below for payment options via either bank transfer or Paypal.

Interac e-transfer: Ngaireras@gmail.com
Paypal: conorpurcell@gmail.com