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.

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.

LOCALE magazine project update

We recently put together another issue of LOCALE magazine, which we create in it’s entirety here at October Custom Publishing – magazine design, editorial, production… you name it. Now I have to not fall asleep … lots of reading to catch up on, and Natalie Word, GQ, WIRED’s 500+ mb iPad issue, Popular Science, Adobe and other related posts to write.

“Be different, be better”

On Samir Husni’s Mr Magazine blog, there’s a really interesting three part interview with Roy Reiman on starting a magazine today, and his current magazine’s unique fictional salesperson, his fictional dog and fictional wife. Really worth listening to – link below.

UPDATE: It’s arrived!

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My 3G iPad has NOT arrived early.

Guitar Aficionado Magazine

So I only picked this up because I was counting the magazines in Borders with Jeff Bridges on the cover (there were a lot). It’s completely different from what I was expecting. I thought I was going to see dry, copy heavy, middle of the road layouts with some crappy manufacturer-supplied photography, and a feature well phone interview with Jeff Bridges filled out to 20 pages with whatever publicity stills and photos they could rustle up from the interwebs.

Popular Science on the iPad

I’m sure everyone has seen this by now, but here I am late to the party and slightly drunk as usual. Bonnier Corporation have been busy working on an iPad optimized edition of Popular Science, cunningly labelled “Popular Science+”. It’s actually very cool, and makes me feel kind of sick at the same time. Sick in an “Uh oh I just came one step closer to being replaced by a robot” kind of way. Seriously though, it does make me wonder how the new technology which is going to pop up all over the place for iPad-like content creation is eventually going to be standardized and/or integrated into inDesign, Illustrator etc. Anyway watch the video at the link below, it’s very cool.

Mag+ live with Popular Science+ from Bonnier on Vimeo.

LOCALE magazine project

I’ve been working on this project for a couple of months now – it’s been an interesting experience creating this mini (digital) magazine. I’ll go into more detail later (because I’m lazy and it’s almost 3am), but here are a few pages from the latest issue which went out a couple of weeks ago. I’m excited about where this magazine could go design-wise, and the potential for experimenting once the production process has smoothed out.