"No man who has once heartily and wholly laughed can be altogether irreclaimably bad." - Carlyle
I’m Marc. I was born two years before the Cold War ended. Since that time I’ve been pretty much engrossed in the way that things look and the words we use to describe them. That’s why I am what I am: a Magazine Journalist.
One of my earliest memories is coming home from playschool and in response to my mother asking what I wanted to do that afternoon, I could only think to suggest that we use Smartie boxes to make a Helter Skelter. Not a model – the real thing.
Things haven’t really changed for me. I’m very entrepreneurial – a real self-starter. If there’s something that needs doing, I get very excited about the blank page in front of me. Whether it’s starting an online magazine to fill a gap in the market, learning to design websites like this one you’re reading or any other number of things, I get pretty excited when it comes to doing interesting design or writing jobs.
In 2010, Plastik Magazine, my pet project, beat off stiff competition with a lexical savoir faire and was shortlisted for a Wales Blog Award for Best Writing on a Blog. You can read a bit more about that by clicking here.
In 2011, I began to work on Plastik Magazine full time. Moving into the publishing world as well as the journalism profession was a steep learning curve as I began to not only work on finding stories, but also building revenue streams.
Plastik is now a community. It is unlike any other magazine in South Wales. With over 20 contributors, the website receives several thousand unique users monthly and many more times that in page views. When our first sponsor came on board, during the first month of their partnership with us, their Twitter follower count leapt up by 200. Interaction with their brand was built through the strong brand that Plastik has.
In October 2011, I launched Zero Core Magazine with Jen Long (Radio 1 presenter) and Adam Chard (Croatoan Design, We Are Cardiff). The magazine is a quarterly about creativity in music and photography. The response has been a publishers dream: stockists are continually asking us to send them more copies.
Except for this website, I’ve also written for The Guardian and The Line of Best Fit among others.
You can get in touch with me by doing the following:
Twitter Me
@plastikmag
@iammarcthomas
Find me here
Plastik Magazine
Zero Core Magazine
Drop me a line
If you want to write to me, you can always e-mail me on: themarcthomas@gmail.com
Hope to hear from you very very soon!