A Coronation Event at the Bollinger Burlington B

The artwork is one of the first commissioned portraits of King Charles III and was initially revealed in The Illustrated Coronation Edition. Artist Alistair Barford had attended a reception at Buckingham Palace on the 17^th February, where His Majesty was presented a bracelet by Domingo Peas, an Amazon indigenous leader. The bracelet was included in the portrait and was intended to give the image context and authenticity and a symbol of The Kings advocacy on climate change and sustainability. The portrait of His Majesty was not Barford’s first commissioned by ILN or of a Royal. In 2015 he was asked to paint The Queen, to commemorate Her Majesty becoming the longest-reigning British monarch. You can find a print of this portrait in this link.

The event began with guests being welcomed with a glass of Bollinger Special Cuvée served en Jeroboam and soon after the room was filled with the music of the London Scottish regimental band, which added to the festive Coronation atmosphere. This was followed by speeches from Champagne Bollinger’s UK director Victoria Carfantan, Burlington Arcade’s Trupti Shah and Lisa Barnard Chief Executive of Illustrated London News, who also posed some questions to Alistair Barford. The champagne was accompanied with exquisite delicacies created by a fellow Royal Warrant Holder, patisserie chef Didier Merveilleux.

To commemorate The Coronation, Champagne Bollinger has collaborated with chef Didier Merveilleux, to create a unique Coronation Afternoon Treat menu, to be served exclusively at The Bollinger Burlington Bar from 27th April to 14th May. The menu, paired with a glass of Bollinger Special Cuvée, will be served on beautiful Thomas Goode & Co tableware, another tertiary Royal Warrant holder, making this an unparalleled dining experience. To honour the excellent work of the Queen Elizabeth Scholarship Trust, Champagne Bollinger will donate a portion of proceeds from each afternoon tea sold.

Our guests were also amongst the first to admire the magnificent installations at the Burlington Arcade that had been unveiled earlier that day. The arcade has installed 55 flags and 180 metres of carpet all in honour of His Majesty. The instillation design features the four flowers of the nation: the thistle, Scotland’s national flower; the daffodil, the national flower of Wales; the three-leaf shamrock, regarded as the national symbol of Northern Ireland, and finally, the Tudor Rose, the national flower of England which has merged with the official Burlington Arcade rosette.

Lisa Barnard shared her thoughts on the event: “ILN is delighted to have co-hosted this celebration and unveil the stunning portrait of The King, painted by the talented artist Alastair Barford. We are proud to have featured this beautiful portrait on the cover of The Illustrated Coronation Edition. What better way to honour His Majesty than with a glass of Bollinger in hand on the day the splendid Coronation decorations at Burlington Arcade were unveiled?”

We would like to say a tremendous thanks to Champagne Bollinger and the Burlington Arcade for their fantastic work organising and hosting the event!

The First Commissioned Portrait of King Charles III Revealed

Illustrated London News is proud to reveal its specially commissioned portrait of His Majesty King Charles III that will feature on the front cover of The Illustrated Coronation Edition. The portrait was painted in oils by the artist Alastair Barford, a former QEST scholar (Queen Elizabeth Scholarship Trust) and is the first portrait to be released since the change of reign and among the first to be commissioned.

The artist had just two weeks to complete the project, and while His Majesty did not sit for the portrait, Alastair was able to study him at work at a Buckingham Palace reception on 17 February held in support of global biodiversity, working from his photographs and sketches of the occasion.

The likeness of The King and his sympathetic expression are striking. Alastair Barford commented: “I wished to capture his warmth and sensitivity, the empathy which came across in his interactions with the people he met. It was important that I captured a sympathetic expression.”

A detail of the portrait includes a bracelet on His Majesty’s wrist, presented to The King by the Amazon indigenous leader, Domingo Peas, at the Palace reception on 17 February. The artist included the bracelet to give the portrait context and authenticity, a symbol of The King’s advocacy on climate change and sustainability. 

The portrait of The King was not Barford’s first royal portrait. He was commissioned as an up and coming artist by Illustrated London News in 2015 to paint Her Majesty The Queen in oils to mark her becoming the longest reigning British Monarch. It was Barford’s first formal commission and he studied The Queen at The Order of Garter Ceremony at Windsor Castle.

The portrait was hailed in The Daily Telegraph as “a far better likeness than many more famous artists have achieved from extensive sittings with The Queen” and The Daily Mail deemed it “stunning”. After The Queen‘s death in September 2022, The Daily Telegraph included Barford’s portrait as one of the top 5 portraits of The Queen.

The Illustrated Coronation Edition is the first dedicated Coronation edition to be published in 2023. In addition to the new portrait, it contains rare archive material of the former Prince of Wales and coronations though the ages. It will be in supermarkets including M&S, Waitrose, Sainsbury’s, Tesco, Booths, Asda, Morrisons and WH Smith and Barnes & Noble in U.S from 30 March.

Lisa Barnard, Chief Executive of Illustrated London News, commented: “Illustrated London News has had a long tradition, dating back to 1842, of commissioning royal portraits for Coronation and Jubilee editions. So we wished to create a new portrait of King Charles III for our special Illustrated Coronation Edition. It is the first painting of The King where the artist has been able to observe the Monarch first hand. It’s extraordinary that Alastair Barford achieved this result in just a fortnight. He is phenomenally talented, and so modest. He worked around the clock to get the best result and finesse it. We are grateful for the Palace’s support in making this happen.

“Creating this portrait is fitting with His Majesty The King’s support of artistic talent and craftmanship. Alastair Barford was ILN’s first choice as artist because of the dazzling talent he demonstrated with his portrait of Her Majesty The Queen and his connection with QEST. These are now two companion portraits of Queen and King, and mother and son.”

You can buy the magazine by going to britishcoronation.com.

Luxury Journalism Internship

As an intern or for work experience at SPHERE magazine https://www.spherelife.com/ you will be a part of the processes of research, copywriting and distributing content on SPHERE digital channels including website, social channels and a weekly email newsletter. You will also have opportunities to research, write and help out on the quarterly print magazine.

SPHERE is an established magazine (print and digital) focused on luxury and mostly London/UK and travel destinations, covering lifestyle, culture, travel, food and drink, fashion, interior design, watches, jewellery, beauty and luxury tech. We are known for the high quality and execution of our content and intelligent outlook on luxury. You can find a couple of recent print magazines here SPHERE 15.2 SPHERE 15.3.

In this role (primarily digital) you will experience and work within all elements of the content lifecycle of SPHERE, including research, content planning, writing, picture research, proofreading, publishing on CMS and social media. You will receive support and training throughout your time at SPHERE and will be involved with the process of making SPHERE a success and will get guidance and direction from the SPHERE editorial team.

You will also be involved with ILN (Illustrated London News Ltd) https://iln.co.uk/, SPHERE’s parent company, a well-established content marketing agency working with high profile brands. You are likely to have admin or office tasks thrown at you, such as database research or helping out on mailings. You may get involved in other projects across the agency, such as our forthcoming Coronation publications or other client work.

SPHERE Website, Social content, Print

• Identify stories and create content suitable for coverage by SPHERE online – luxury, London, culture, travel, restaurants, food and drink, restaurants, fashion, jewellery, watches, beauty
• Research and create content for SPHERE Curates guides, working with the Digital editor
• Researching and contacting PRs for content and interviews.
• Picture research: requesting usable images for SPHERE articles from PRs and brands
• Contribute to the content calendar, suggesting stories including website and social content stories
• Write some digital-only content with a perspective on the world of luxury
• Upload articles to the SPHERE website via the CMS (Drupal) with training and after approval in SPHERE tone of voice – intelligent, beautifully written, canny, discerning, with a dash of humour
• An interest in luxury, culture, fashion retail, trends and news
• Proof articles and copy written by other writers
• Your own copy needs to be super accurate and we hope will not require proofreading. We require grammatical and spelling perfection!
  
  

Social media

• Produce some posts for SPHERE social media channels
• Help manage follower engagement

What we look for

• A super-organised person who is able to juggle multiple tasks
• Excellent copywriting skills – a strong writer and someone who wants to develop their journalistic skills
• An interest and knowledge of London, luxury, trends
• An ability to research and create content on a wide variety of topics – pursue PRs and brands for content or information we need and get the content assets we need to tight deadlines
• Microsoft suite if possible; photoshop an advantage
• Grasp of digital marketing/content trends and techniques
• Understanding of basic SEO principles an advantage
• Curiosity and a sense of fun

Requirements

• Experience in journalism and creating content in a university course or something similar
• Confidence in liaising with colleagues and external contacts, such as PR – effective email style and telephone manner
• A visual eye to assess quality of pictures
• Willingness to roll up sleeves – might be some mundane tasks we just have to get done
• Know your social media platforms, especially Instagram
• A creative eye – for imagery and social media content

Terms

• The internship is unpaid. We are looking for availability from at least 1 to 3 months (e.g. if part of a training course and within guidelines for work experience). The longer the better, or if you can commit to weeks at different times. Previous interns have developed successful careers both at ILN and in media as a direct result or have been taken on paid contracts on a project basis.
• We pay travel expenses in London and a contribution of £5/per day for lunch in town.
• A mentoring session with the CEO, Lisa Barnard and/or Digital Editor (depending on length and nature of the internship)
• Based mostly at Soho Works (Shoreditch/The Strand) and partly remotely
• Access to office gym at our Lenta office in Spitalfields
• Ideally you have your own laptop (we can provide a Mac during the internship if needed)

Please apply to Louis Crompton, ILN, [email protected] Please send a covering email on why you are suitable, your CV, any examples of work and your availability in 2022 and 2023 with specific dates. Thank you!

The Launch of Our New Illustrated Platinum Jubilee Magazine

Illustrated London News held a reception in Pall Mall’s Reform Club to celebrate the launch of The Illustrated Platinum Jubilee. Hosted by Chief Executive of ILN Lisa Barnard, the dapper invitees raised a glass of Louis Roederer Champagne to the new publication and to the 70th anniversary of Queen Elizabeth’s accession to the throne.

The auspicious guests also had the opportunity to admire The Reform Club’s forthcoming Platinum Jubilee exhibition. ILN collaborated on the event with the Royal Warrant Holders Association and The Queen Elizabeth Scholarship Trust (QEST). A portion of all sales of The Illustrated Platinum Jubilee will be donated to QEST to support the training of craftsmen and women. A Sincere thanks to those who attended and to our generous sponsors, Louis Roederer.

NEWS RELEASE: Unlimited access for schools to the world’s greatest illustrated magazine archives and how art changed the way news was reported

You can view the full brochure here or on the following link: htps://www.iln.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/ILN-SCHOOLS-BROCHURE.pdf

 

This provides the background detail on why these resources are relevant for students aged 11-18 and history departments in particular.  Access to the archives is now available to secondary schools at an affordable price on an annual subscription basis, for which schools can access two separate digital archives, totalling 1.3 million pages, and is accompanied by free teaching and studying resources.  Until now these two collections have been offered primarily to Further Education institutes, including universities, and museums around the world, and they have never been offered to schools as a package.

   

Lisa Barnard, Chief Executive of Illustrated London News Ltd, said: “We have had a lot of feedback from teachers that they would love to be able to access to relevant resources to replace the over-used standard ones, especially from textbooks and exam papers. Given the COVID-19 situation, we wanted to make this happen right away and we were able to do so. We are fortunate that our collections are image-led – that ‘a picture is worth a thousand words’ is still the case today.  We hope to inspire and create a new generation of history and cultural detectives, unearthing fascinating and exciting material.

   

“The ILN became the television of its day and allowed the public for the first time not just to be able to read about British and world events, but to ‘see’ them. This method of employing ‘Special Artists’ who were sent to produce finished illustrations was a concept which changed the concept of journalism. This was not art for art’s sake. This was art for news’ sake.”

   

Chronicling the changing world throughout the 19^th and 20^th centuries, the publications in these fascinating pictorial archives are the most well-known, varied and visual in British periodical publishing history. Originally under the umbrella of The Illustrated London News, there are 10 titles in total in these combined collections, all considered to be among the foremost popular journals of their respective periods. The archives will be an invaluable tool across the curriculum, bringing a wealth of material to lessons, especially history, but also relevant to other subjects such as English Literature, science, art, media and drama.

   

Through our two educational publishing partners Cengage/Gale and ProQuest, you can choose to subscribe to a single archive, The Illustrated London News, the world’s first illustrated newspaper spanning 1842-2003, or the 9 sister titles, or both.  In light of the COVID-19 situation and the increased need for schools to offer remote teaching and promote online studying, we are also providing free teaching and study resources, including adaptable PowerPoints, videos and webinars. These have been designed for conventional classroom use as well as remote online teaching.

For further information and more images available in high-res please contact Lisa Barnard – [email protected]

Hot off The Wedding press

It’s a tough act being a newspaper these days. With television, the internet and social media platforms gearing up for the Big Day months ahead, this was one of the most orchestrated media events the world has ever seen. So how do you compete with live coverage when you have an 18-hour delay before you land on the breakfast table? How do you write original, compelling content, rather than regurgitate what has been said during several hours of live TV coverage and in millions of #royalwedding tweets? Newspaper reporters need to cut it both ways these days – swim with the internet giants and run with the press hounds.

The privileged access offered to newspapers by the Palace is not what it used to be. Take our own paper (no longer published), The Illustrated London News, legendary in its heyday for its coverage of royal events. The editor was automatically allocated a prime seat “in the Abbey” so he could soak up the atmosphere and produce the authoritative eye witness account of the occasion for which the ILN was renowned – be it a Coronation, royal wedding or state funeral.

Not so with the Harry and Meghan’s wedding. Kensington Palace, we gather, initially decreed that no print reporters would be allowed into the Chapel; only TV cameras were offered this privilege. After vigorous lobbying, eventually one Press Association journalist was allowed into the inner sanctum on behalf of all. The rest of the pack were ensconced in a makeshift press room, watching the service on a screen along with 2 billion others around the world, with the variable sound quality and internet connection you would expect in a medieval castle.

Despite these challenges, the royal wedding newspaper coverage demonstrated that newspaper journalism is far from being in the doldrums, thanks to two great factors that set it part. First, the less talked about skill of the picture desk. A picture says a thousand words, but when faced with an instant choice of a thousand pictures, one picture creates a thousand memories. Video may have killed the radio star but it didn’t kill the photo editor. Second, the voices that individually and collectively create a narrative that is rich, memorable and–on the whole–well crafted. There was a sharp contrast between the off-the-cuff commentary of television and Twitter and the considered curation and scrutiny of newspaper journalism. This was most evident in coverage of Bishop Curry’s now legendary sermon. The broadcasters did not know what to make of the sermon, and were either flummoxed or dismissive, no doubt influenced by a few raised eyebrows and ill-judged smirks in the Chapel. By the time the newspapers had paused for thought, digested and published, the sermon was hailed as the single defining factor which set this royal wedding apart from all that have come before.

Nor is it a coincidence that the top newspaper journalists are wheeled in on telly as the experts, with a line up including The Daily Mail‘s Robert Hardman, You Magazine’s Jo Elvin  and The Sunday Times’ Roya Nikkhah. If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.

But we shouldn’t feel sorry for newspapers. They make it harder for themselves by the self-imposed rivalry between the Sunday and daily editions. A royal wedding  inevitably falls on a Saturday, making the job of the royal correspondent on a daily doubly hard. They need to conjure up something meaningful and fresh 48 hours after the event, when the street parties have packed up and everyone is back at work. Newspapers have had to slash their cost base in recent years, so I find it astonishing that the Chinese walls which exist between the Sundays and dailies under the same brand and ownership have not yet been knocked down. If you were starting a news business today in whatever channel, only lunatics would create a business model with a separate team that is dedicated to a single edition one day a week. If I were in charge of a newspaper, I would get my best team on it every day of the week. What’s for sure there are some top teams out there.

The Illustrated Royal Weddings is available from princeharryroyalwedding.co.uk and retailers including Waitrose, W H Smith in UK and Barnes & Noble in US

 

The sharpest wordbites in Royal Wedding coverage:

For authority

“It certainly blew the cobwebs off a thousand years of history and showed that at the heart of the establishment, at the very core of our ancient traditions and most hallowed beliefs, there has at last been an acknowledgment that Britain is a changed country and that diversity and inclusion are here to stay.”

Valentine Low, The Times

 

For perspective

“The most important thing is the Queen wore sunglasses.”

Stuart Heritage, The Times

 

For slick savagery

“This was The Royal Wedding: the Reality Show, in which everyone was either a star or an extra.”

Camilla Long, The Sunday Times

 

For the voice of doom

“It may be too much and too unfair to expect the rejoicing around this latest royal wedding to lighten the weight of two burdens: that of the memory of the Diana-tragedy, and that of the anxieties of a nation headed for an exit without any clear sense of destination.”

Simon Schama, Financial Times

 

For the best Elton soundbite

“The candle in front of [Bishop Curry] swayed dangerously in the tornadic gusts of his enthusiasm. A new kind of candle in the wind.”

Allison Pearson, The Sunday Telegraph

 

For pure entertainment

“The Duchess of Cornwall turned up in a gigantic pink feathered hat, which seemed to be her personal F… You to every flamingo in the world.”

Caitlin Moran, The Times Magazine

 

For setting a new barometer

“If a list of hot 61-year olds exists she [Doria Raglan] just zoomed to the top of it.”

Robert Crampton, The Times

 

For explaining why black is grey

“The euphemism for her dual heritage is ‘modern.’ Somehow, in a country that is riven with discord about who should and should not be here, blackness gets reconfigured as modernity, rather than being recognized as part of our history. “

Suzanne Moore, The Guardian

 

For a Mum’s perspective

“The sun shone, a choir sang Stand by Me and small flower girls and pageboys behaved perfectly while giggling (the Haribo quota must have been bang on).”

Claudia Winkleman, The Sunday Times

 

For mastery in misery

“In truth, two institutions, monarchy and the press, are walking hand in hand towards their doom after 400 years of interdependence.”

Roy Greenslade, The Guardian

 

For summing it up

“There was a national sigh of relief that the bothersome question of the last decade—just who will marry Harry?—had finally been answered. And how.”

Sarah Oliver, Mail on Sunday