Juliet Lawrence Wilson

When my full time job was working as a columnist I found life pretty lonely. Its difficult to be inspired when you work on your own and in my case, in my jim jams. Since I became a Humanist Society of Scotland celebrant, I've become involved in many humanist activities and one of my favourite things I do is edit Humanitie, the society's magazine.



The best thing about editing is commissioning great writers like Mark Fisher who has so far interviewed Turner Prize Nominee Nathan Coley and Tartan Noir novelist Christopher Brookmyre for us. Philosophers A.C. Grayling and Nigel Warburton have also written exclusive pieces for Humanitie, and a nicer pair of fellows you could not meet.

And then there is Derek Green. Design is very important to me as an editor because no matter how original and fascinating the articles are, the reader will enjoy the whole experience of holding, scanning and then becomming immersed in the writing if the magazine looks great. What I love so much about the design Derek does for Humanitie is that you don't pick it up and say, "Woah, getta look at that design job!" You simply accept the magazine as a classy piece of work that just feels 'right'. It doesn't look designed, it appears to be born that way. But making it look easy is the hard part. Here's a shot of Derek and me watching our first issue come off the print run. Derek was checking the colours and I was trying to look as if I knew what checking the colours was all about whilst sportingly wearing a tea cosy on my head:



One of Derek's favourite phrases is, "Email me the images and the text and I'll sprinkle some magic dust over the whole thing."

It took me a long time to learn this: if you want your work to be the very best it can be, you need to work with great people. Obvious? Perhaps, but I've worked with a few people who were more than happy to have colleagues or employees less talented than themselves. Reassuringly, not one of these people has ever achieved greatness.

It is also important to work with people you like. Because I like Derek immensely, I trust him and this allows him to go for a risky idea and not hold back.

Another reason that Derek is fab is that he teaches at the Edinburgh College of Art and got some of his students to create designs for some humanist t-shirts and postcards.

So my quarter year resolution is to work with more people who have magic dust and sprinkle more of the stuff around myself.