Contents page design

There’s a short blog post about contents page design for print magazines – specifically The Absolute Sound magazine – over at this site.

Storage solutions for magazine collectors

 

That is awesome, find out more here.

Some important points to consider when organizing your magazine collection:

• Keep what you’ll read most often, or want to read first, near the most accessible part of your collection. If you decide to fill a wall of shelves with your magazines, don’t put your favorite titles on the very top shelf where you can’t get at them easily.
• While it might be tempting to pack them in tightly so they all look uniform and straight, you’ll probably have a really hard time getting an individual issue out if they’re packed too tightly.
• It will also be a lot easier to access your magazines if they are stored vertically. You can still break up the monotony of the collection with the occasional stack of horizontal miscellaneous magazines – if that’s what you want – but keeping the majority vertical will make it much easier to pull them in and out of their positions on the shelf.
• Make sure you keep your storage area well ventilated, and away from sources of heat (like fireplaces, electrical wiring, some plastics). All that paper can easily become a fire hazard if situated incorrectly.
• Consider weight. All those magazines are going to add up to some considerable weight, so if you’re planning on filling shelf space, make sure both the shelves and the wall they’re attached to can bear the load. Don’t feel bad about calling a professional installer if you’re not sure. The benefits of properly installed, safe shelving far outweigh the potential risks of overloaded shelving. There is also a wealth of information available online giving help and advice on the many different ways you can mount shelves on drywall, brick, and other wall types within your home.

Finally, if you do decide to de-clutter and get rid of some magazines, look up a local recycling facility in your area, or (if you can’t bear the thought of your collection becoming pulp), contact local libraries to find out if they accept donated magazine collections.

HOW magazine cover

HOW‘s February 2012 cover is nice, and reminds me a lot of this custom publishing piece created way back in the day.

Awesome photography in The Absolute Sound issue 223

Joel Salcido shot this feature for The Absolute Sound, who are one of the clients we provide magazine design and production services to at October Custom Publishing. Love the stepped levitation. Would love my household objects to levitate in real life, but oh well.

LOCALE magazine’s latest issue

Lots of beautiful photography in the latest issue of LOCALE. This is it’s 30th issue of this digital magazine, so expect to see a redesign of the magazine in the next year. While it looks good now, I think it would benefit from a redesign that focuses on readability for screen. It’s already got the photography and layout down, but on certain monitors can be a struggle to read in places… and increasing the font size would undoubtedly also increase the page count, a value add for our client for just a little added production time long-term.

Centro Y Sur magazine launches on Texterity, we’re very happy with how it looks (because we made it)

One of the many projects I’ve been involved with at October Custom Publishing is the page design, production and art direction – in fact pretty much all aspects of production – of Centro Y Sur magazine. A digital publication from the mind of Jason Z. Guest, we’re currently in our final week of production of issue 4. I thought I’d share a pieces from the last few issues. Seriously, this isn’t just a shameless plug, we’re really interested in hearing your feedback on the magazine’s usability, especially when it comes to navigation and ease of use. We spent FOREVER working on the internal nav for this – and then there’s Texterity’s own nav tools which come as standard in this particular hosting model. So I’m not going to say too much more – you can read the whole issue (and back issues) here. Some more pages from issue 4 after the jump.

Awesome free image source

Quick note: I came across this royalty free image source recently, well worth bookmarking and contributing to: http://www.morguefile.com

More and more recently, I’ve begun to realize how important getting my desk ‘right’ before I start working really is. And I’ve become addicted to researching other people’s work-spaces, particularly Mac users and designers/creatives. This blog is probably the most addictive of the lot, and beautiful in its simplicity.

Be ready to spend all day there.

Illustrated anatomy of Gamera and foes, via Pink Tentacle

Love this illustration/infographic. I NEED to find an excuse to do something like this in the next magazine I can get my grubby mitts on! Here’s the link to the original post on Pink Tentacle.

ACL 2010 Program in the field!

Here’s some pics taken this morning of the Austin City Limits 2010 Program for which we at October Custom Publishing provided magazine design and art direction services. Thank you Mikki for the photos, please proceed with beer drinking.