Work for The Skinny

The Skinny is an independent, creative company that seeks to connect curious readers with interesting artists and events. We aim to offer freedom within your role to work towards our company goals and business vision.

Art Editor
Web Developer (Wordpress)
Contributors

Web Developer (Wordpress)

We’re beginning the process of creating a new website for The Skinny and Fest, and we’re looking for someone to help us build the new site.

We’re looking to replace our current website – which is built in a custom web CMS based on Refinery (Ruby on Rails) – with a new and more user-friendly site built in WP. We’d be looking for a simple solution that allows us to publish new content from The Skinny and our festivals magazine Fest, as well as streamlining our frontend and backend and allowing any minor updates and new features to be managed by our existing team. Essentially, we don’t want anything too complicated.

What we do want is a stable, simple web-based solution for publishing 80-100 articles a month (with a lot more at key times of year, like the Fringe); a straightforward, easily-adapted system for our freelance writers, production staff, editors and commercial team; and a modern, lightweight, SEO-friendly website for our readers. Beyond that, we’re open to ideas.

We’re looking for someone with experience of building Wordpress sites, as well as some familiarity with The Skinny and what we do. This would be a temporary, part-time freelance contract; the project scope and fee would be defined in consultation with our chosen candidate, but we’d be keen to have something new in place by early 2025.

Sound intriguing? Send us an email with your CV and any relevant examples of past work to jobs@theskinny.co.uk – if you have any questions about the role, feel free to get in touch and we’ll answer them as best we can.

Art Editor

The Skinny seeks a new Art Editor to work in a freelance capacity writing and commissioning articles about visual art in Scotland in line with our monthly print cycle. The Skinny aims to offer an informed perspective on what’s happening in the visual arts in Scotland, and we’re looking for someone who’s passionate about bringing their experience and specific outlook to visual arts coverage.

Each year we work with a variety of partners on projects that expand beyond the print publication – in 2024 we’ve worked with Glasgow School of Art on their degree show supplement, developed an emerging critics programme with Edinburgh Art Festival and celebrated 50 years of Fruitmarket Gallery by delving into their archives. The Art editor has been key to the development of these projects. 

If the Art editor role sounds like something you’d be interested in, send some writing samples along with a cover letter outlining what you’d like to see in the art section and why you’d be interested in working for The Skinny to jobs@theskinny.co.uk by Sunday 27 October.

Key facts!
Fee: £125 flat fee per month, plus per-article payments for any writing. Special projects, workshops etc are also paid separately. 
Expectations: The current baseline is to commission or write one exhibitions round-up and one interview feature per month for print and online. We would be looking for more features during busy times (e.g. Edinburgh Art Festival) and also open to discussing bringing back reviews in some form.
Deadline: Midnight Sunday 27 October

CONTRIBUTORS (Writers, Illustrators, Photographers)

The Skinny is your magazine: a collaborative effort, it’s put together by people who love their region and its culture, for people who love their region and its culture – and our contributors are known for having something new to say as well as a passion for their areas of expertise.

We are looking for writers, illustrators and photographers on an ongoing basis to help make The Skinny an informed, inspiring, witty and opinionated collection of the voices and talents that makes Scotland such an exciting place to be.

With 35,000+ copies distributed to more than 650 venues, The Skinny gives writers a platform to get their voice heard, and illustrators and photographers an opportunity to showcase their work and build their portfolio.

Pitching to The Skinny: Before you pitch your article ideas, we first recommend reading this pitching guide, which gives clear advice on writing a successful, eye-catching pitch to The Skinny and answers many questions you might have about the process.

If you’re a writer: Please introduce yourself to the relevant section editor – see contact details here – and send them two or three samples of your work.

If you’re an illustrator or photographer: Please email jobs@theskinny.co.uk with the subject line 'Contributor: illustrator' or 'Contributor: photographer' and let us know your area of expertise/interest (e.g. perhaps you’re a fashion photographer, or would like to try more live music photography) – and please link us to your portfolio where possible rather than attaching large files.