The University of Melbourne contracted Rosanne as a consultant and editor for the relaunch of the Future Students web site. The six-month contract was extended and another project, the relaunch of the Melbourne International site, was added to it. The relaunch involved consulting with numerous stakeholders, editing and rewriting more than 800 pages of the site, redoing the user navigation, merging pages to reduce duplicated content, establishing a strategic oversight committee to maintain upkeep, addressing an international audience, adding multimedia and interactive (Javascript) content to a previously static site and training staff members. See the Future Students site.

Heliotrope approached the Ethical Supermarket Guide at the Sustainable Living Festival in 2008, offering to help revamp the existing web site. After producing an analysis of the current site and conducting user testing and card sorting exercises with target markets, a proposal was put forward for restructuring the site. The Guide’s own web team conducted the restructure itself. In addition, Heliotrope has been involved with proof-reading the printed version of the Guide and has provided consultation services on media strategy and distribution. See the Ethical Supermarket Guide site.

64 magazine was a project between rosanne bersten and dale campisi under the company name Vanguard Media. The magazine is an A6-sized mini-magazine for free street distribution, covering everything that’s hot in Melbourne, Australia whether it’s arts, culture, bars or cafés. rosanne was involved in editing and publishing the first three issues of the magazine before leaving for the US.

While there, she also wrote the following articles:

• Tulse Luper Suitcases (preview, 64, October 2006)
• Riverdance (Earthcore 2006) (64, October 2006)
• Party against Poverty (64, November 2006)
• A Scanner Darkly (film review, 64, November 2006)
• Big Mouth shortcuts (64, November 2006)
• Drink of the month: Champagne cocktails (64, November 2006)
• My Eyes! They Lie! (64, November 2006)
• The Music Genome Project (64, November 2006)
• Drive-by Dolphins (64, December 2006)
• Rooftop Cinema review (64, December 2006)
• Volver (film review, 64, December 2006)

11°south is a travel mini-mag and website established by Vanguard Media. rosanne bersten was launch editor, establishing the format, liaising with the art director, commissioning the indigenous illustrator whose iconic art was used throughout, commissioning all articles, editing, and writing.

These are the primary articles she wrote:

• Deco Delight (11°south, December 2006)
• Get Folked (11°south, December 2006)

forget the rules was a world-first web drama for global dilemma. A three-minute episode aired Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. Viewers voted for how they wanted the week’s storyline to end between Wednesday morning and Thursday morning. The writers wrote the next week’s episodes on Thursday, actors rehearsed Friday, filiming was Saturday and post-production was Sunday for Monday’s episode and Monday for Tuesday and Wednesday.

{{heliotrope ink}} was hired in 2005 for the first season. Staff included project manager (dubbed ‘digital media guru’ on the site credits) rosanne bersten, assistant jack fairchild and web community liaison lauren demarte. Roles included media consultancy; web editing; community building. {{heliotrope}} liaised between web design firm Sputnik and the back-end delivery company, and was personally involved in troubleshooting in the weeks before launch. {{heliotrope}} ran weekly competitions on the site, sent material live, operated voting mechanisms and channeled information and statistics between key team members.

Forget the Rules won a 2006 MIPCOM award in Cannes for most innovative new content in a mobile format.

unique traveller magazine was a luxury travel title produced for Viamedia in 2005.

rosanne bersten was hired as launch editor and researched the audience, commissioned features, hired the copyeditor and proofreader, liaised with layout, edited the title, wrote some articles (one on Toledo, Spain; one on Tasmania, Australia), and signed off final pages.

Responses to unique traveller:

“I would just like to pass on our gratitude for the fabulous coverage Tasmania received in your wonderful debut edition. The layout, editorial and images are fabulous and will set you apart from other publications.” — Michelle Grima, Tourism Tasmania

“Looks fab! Good job….totally blown away” — Michael Gebicki, travel writer

“Spacious. Quality. The next thing.” — Ben Canaider, man about town (and wine writer)

“Thank you so much for sending through that beautiful magazine! It has already been passed around the office and read from cover to cover !!” — Lauren Jacobs, STM

{{heliotrope ink}} has has an extensive association with x|media|lab over a number of years, from 2003 to 2005.  rosanne bersten acted as an administrative aid and assistant facilitator in the first year, and continued with media consulting, video archival assistance, web writing, and further facilitation assistance.

x|media|lab has received accolades as an innovative incubator for digital media projects.

Viamedia won the contract from the Deaflympics in 2005 to produce the program for a week of sporting events. {{heliotrope ink}} was hired as a contract copyeditor and proofreader. The task involved meticulous cross-referencing of event times and dates with provided schedules, careful checking of ticket pricing and sensitivity to last minute programming changes.

The program was well-received by the client and was without error. A copy is available for perusal if required.