Ceros Training Course

Now this is interesting. Recently there have been a few jobs advertised online for Ceros Designers. This isn’t Ceros actively seeking new employees but instead companies evolving their job titles to directly reference this “new” medium. I personally see this as quite a cool thing, it means eZines are starting to really infiltrate mainstream magazine publishing. It’s also a damn good bit of advertising for Ceros, they seem to be becoming the standard.
In light of this Ceros have decided to do a one off training course (the first of many I should imagine) focusing on Flash designers designing specifically for the their platform. The course is in July and may be well worth checking out…

Ceros Training

Introducing CarZine

Been meaning to post this one up for a while now, CarZine is a sweet little Flash heavy mag. It’s a fine, fine example of interactive magazine design. Although a bit hectic in places I love the fact that it’s so layered and interesting, you get sucked in for quite a while, and I can’t even read the text!

It’s published on the eDition platform and makes good use of there customisable interface. Check it out:

CarZine
eDition

eZines coming out the shazoo…

Been a few new eZines popping up recently, all of which are on the Ceros platform…

Rubber Duck car magazine, Venue – a O2 publication and Tennis Head, a tennis mag that blatanly rips off a load of my ideas. Also Issue 2 of Wired UK is online with some nice nifty little Flash pieces and finally Number 5 (Rio Ferdinand’s mag) is still well worth checking out.

Seems things are starting to gather momentum, as each month passes there is at least one new eZine launched, and the quality of most of them is pretty good really.

Ceros
Rubber Duck
Venue
Tennis Head
Wired UK
5

World Magazine Congress

I was really looking forward to hearing what some of the publishing industry’s top people had to say about the future of magazines. I was kinda disappointed. It seems everyone believes we are in a “crisis”, in fact this word popped up a hell of a lot over the day.

The first thing that struck me about WMC was the lack of young people. I was probably the only person under 35 and definitely the only person wearing jeans and a Blues Brothers t-shirt. Where were all the creative people? You know those people that actually put the magazine together, the people that really push this industry forward… where were the talks from Editors and Art Directors?

Most of the speakers were old fuddy-duddies who not only seemed reluctant to acknowledge a deterioration in magazine popularity but didn’t even seem aware of online interactive magazines.

Everyone spoke about electronic media naming websites, eReaders and pocket devices as the obvious future, but not one person on the Wednesday approached the subject of eZines. Why not? I don’t believe they don’t about them, Zinio and Ceros are both pretty big companies now. Are they scared to approach the subject because of the lack of knowledge or experience? Or do they just think they are shit and not worth mentioning?

Jonathan Newhouse, Chairman of Conde Nast UK was the first to really big-up the internet stating “Its possible the internet will dominate our industry”. No shit Sherlock. Now I’m pretty sure he figured this out years ago but it’s amazing people still feel the need to say it like its a new thing.

He mentioned Wired (US) magazine having a print readership of about 703,000 but a web audience of over 11.4 million. But he didn’t mention the prospect of an online mag despite Wired UK now teaming up with Ceros. I would love to have heard his opinions on eZines and how they can bridge the gap between web and print.

The common consensus is that the choice to go to digital is not ours to make, it’s upto the consumer and they have chosen. Web is now the future. Finally people seem to be listening. Although when anyone said “I love print” they would get a round of applause. I love print too but don’t fool yourself, it’s time to look at the wider picture.

The panel about magazines around the world was very interesting. Africa and Russia’s publishing history is something I haven’t been aware of before, but it was India that raised an eyebrow. 400 million mobile phones are currently in circulation in India alone. Mobile devices are as important, maybe even more so now than computers.

eReaders and Kindle’s were mentioned a few times, people seem to think that is the only option at the moment. Not so, online publishing is a viable option and as free wireless becomes more widespread it also becomes more accessible. And as soon as Apple stop dicking around and allow Flash onto the iPhone there will be the potential for a whole new wave of magazines.

“Content is king” this was phrase number two of the day. Finally people are understanding that what is important is the transfer of information from us (the publisher) to them the readers. Whether that be through print, books, bookazines, eZines, web, mobile or even event hosting, we need to promote brands as a whole package not just a single entity.

There also seems to be an agreement that content has to be original and you can’t just duplicate magazine content and bung it up everywhere, original content for each platform is a must to ensure quality.

Overall there was a lot of old shit being talked about, it was interesting to see what the big wigs had to say and it was great to see Ceros and eDition on show and creating a buzz. It was also massively frustrating to see no ones with any balls speaking. Everyone was playing it safe. Where was the passion and enthusiasm that I see in the office on a daily basis?

I hope next year FIPP can line up some people that aren’t afraid to speak their mind, even in this delicate economic time. In fact, as far as I’m concerned this is the best time to people to talk up.

For more info check out the FIPP site below;

http://www.fipplondon09.com/

Digital presence

I’m a little late with this but I’ve had a hell of a week so this is the first bit of time I’ve had to sit down and write.
After my brief rant about only suits attending these events a kind lady at the PPA gave me a press ticket for Wednesday so unfortunately I missed Felix Dennis’ talk and the Tuesday panel Digital Magazines. I did however get a chance to snoop around and take in some talks and stand demos.

Digital Publishing seemed to have a strong presence with Zinio, Ceros and eDition all in attendance.

Ceros gave me a sneak peak at their soon to be released online magazine builder, a tool used in the creation of new issues. It’s a web based app that looks very simple to use offering video placement and link creation with ease. They also spilled a few details about their new Ceros build due towards the end of the year, seems like they have some good stuff planned…

eDition had a nice little stand with a great demo of CarZine, a new online mag in conjunction with Porsche. A really nice, Flash heavy title that looked really good and runs really well on the eDition platform. I think they raised a few eyebrows with their demos.

Zinio were out in force trying to persuade people they were still head of the game. I don’t agree personally, I think charging people for eZines is wrong and I think the simple uploading of print PDFs to an eZine is a shit way for this industry to progress. Zinio don’t seem to be as inovative or as willing to push the boat out as much as the above two companies. If anyone knows different feel free to tell me I’m wrong…

New bigger KindleDX to save publishing industry?

Can the new DX save publishing? Of course not, just another sensationalist headline. It should really have read “KindleDX is er, bigger…”

Firstly I’m not sure how popular these devices are, in central London I have only ever seen 3 people use an e-reader, having got my hands on a couple of different models I have always found them slow, crap to look at and bulky.

I’m not sure at what point someone said “you know what we really need is to make this bigger”.
Do Amazon really expect people to lug that thing around just so they can read a 50 pence news paper they could roll up and stick in their bag?

Ex-Future Publishing owner, now curator of TED Chris Anderson shared his views on KindleDX and the future of newspaper publishing…

http://tedchris.posterous.com/the-future-of-newspapers

If people are open to the idea of a large electronic reader than they will be open to the idea of new formats, new ways of presenting information. Do we really need to imitate printed newspapers on an e-reader especially by making it bigger? Maybe it’s that familiarity that attracts people? I feel more research needs to be shared with publishers before we start making more work for already overworked people.

I would much rather see a colour reader or a thinner reader. I know they are working on this but $489 for a large black and white solid plastic e-reader just seems like an inaccessible luxury, and what the industry needs is an affordable fashion accessory, like the iPhone.

Not to be completely negative, I like the fact it has no-fee built in 3G wireless, and can read PDFs. They may well be close to something special, they’re not too far away from being able to stream content and when they can do that in colour, we’ll start to see some really interesting publications.

World Magazine Congress 09

Shortly after my post below moaning about events like FIPP being out of my price range a lovely person from the PPA kindly set me up with a pass for the remainder of the event, thanks!
They’ll be a report going online sometime tonight but it was good to see a strong presence of online publishers; eDition, Ceros and Zinio…

World Magazine Congress

If you’re in London today or tomorrow then head down to the World Magazine Congress or FIPP London 09 as it’s snazily being called this year.
If you can afford the piss-takingly expensive ticket (why do these things always exclude the people that actually make the magazines but just can’t afford a second mortgage?) there will be a whole host of speakers to er, hear speak…

Felix Dennis; my boss and overall British media legend.
Paul Kurzeja; ex Art Editor of MacUser now Creative Director of Redwood Publishing.
George J. Green; Chariman of Hearst Magazines (may have some insight into their e-ink product?)
Will Whitehorn; President of Virgin Galactic (UK)
Kevin Madden; Publisher of Dennis Publishing’s iGizmo, iMotor and Monkey eZines

As well as panels and talks there will be a whole host of “social events” or “massive piss-ups claimed on expenses” as they are also known. Plus a lot of exhibitors…Also go check out the stand by eDition they’ll have some cool shit on display…

http://www.fipplondon09.com/
http://www.edition-on.net/english/home.html
http://www.zinio.com/
http://ceros.com/
http://www.citadela.eu/

What is the future for print designers?

Moving forward under the assumption that eZines like iGizmo take off massively and become a key part of modern publishing, what role will a print designer play?

As Brand Art Editor of iGizmo I have been lucky enough to be in a position where by I feel I have made a positive contribution to the future of publishing and magazine design. Having been in the job since launch (just over a year now) I consider myself in a unique position to comment though my comments are purely my own and in no way affiliated with the company I work for.

One battle I find myself having during pub discussions is the idea that web designers are taking over from print designers. After all eZines are online, surely it makes perfect sense to have web designers at the forefront of this new medium? In fact it must an essential right? Well not up until now. I have always treated iGizmo as a print magazine and have designed it as such, 10 years of print design experience have gone into what I produce and past experiences have moulded what I deem to be one of the best eZines out there.

I use Adobe InDesign to lay out all the pages using multiple layers to show various levels of interactivity, i.e. pop ups. Then the InDesign docs are exported as XFL docs and given to our Flash Designer who then follows my direction and animates any interactivity before exporting a SWF. This SWF along with a static PDF are combined to make a page.

But is this the most efficient way of making an eZine? No would be a popular answer.

Why not do the whole lot in Flash? Or even Illustrator? 2 reasons, one all members of an editorial team are now required to write on page and not using Word docs. Writers write on page as dictated by my design. InDesign is already known by a lot of editorial staff and is much more accessible then Illustrator. Secondly InDesgin is primarily a layout package. It is made to be used as a design tool for laying out magazines. It’s better than Flash or Illustrator for this function, in fact it’s fantastic. It gives me complete control over a page and allows me to easily modify or completely change existing or new layouts. Why use another programme that doesn’t allow you that ease of freedom?

A year on however it is becoming clear this may not be the best way to do things. What is? Well I’m not that sure to be honest. A lot of people still tell me I shouldn’t be using InDesign and should do all the work in Flash.

In the next year or two I can see Print Designers that work on eZines being slowly pushed out of a job by people with good Flash skills. Why employ a print designer and a Flash designer when one person should be able to the whole lot?

My advice would be to start learning Flash. Not an easy task at all, it’s a huge programme, but get started anyway, in two years time when hopefully more of these magazines will be around, you’ll find it a lot easier to get a job. You will have the ability to design and publish a magazine on your own without need for people like me.

If this happens will companies try and train their existing print designer in Flash or will they just make redundancies and look elsewhere? I would love to say the former but the expense and time involved would make me sway towards the latter. Flash designers are ten-a-penny in London at the moment, you can get them for a smaller wage than ever, and most publishing company’s only care about the cash.

I do believe however that if you push out all the print designers and their valuable experience quality will slide which may result in the whole medium failing to grow. Not that web designers aren’t good or can learn, we all know they can, my point is they have spent the last X amount of years looking at different things, designing in a different way for a different format. Print designers need to always be a part of the process if you are trying to imitate a print product on line. Their experience is an indispensable asset in the future of eZines, so don’t push them away just yet, it’s still early days and you need a good print designer as much as you need a good Flash designer.

Have I started to learn Flash? Not yet, it’s on my list of things to do but there are only so many hours in the day. My job takes up most of my time and normally when I get home I like to relax or do other things besides sit behind a computer. But when I do get a chance I’ll be learning whatever I can, my future may very well depend on it.

Rio Ferdinand launches online mag called Ego, sorry I meant ‘5′

Yesterday saw the launch of Rio Ferdinand’s pet project Number 5. Produced by Made Up Media (the lads responsible for Catflap) Number 5 is an awesome looking ezine. Art Directed by Jason Simmons (formally of MacUser – when it used to be good) and published on the Ceros platform the monthly mag has high production values, good content and some brilliant Flash interaction.

Hopes are high for Number 5; rumor has it that close to one million hits are expected on the first issue which may spark a change to turn subsequent issues into pay-per-view priced at £1 per issue. This would be a first for UK based interactive magazines, it will be interesting to see if this happens and how popular it will remain once it has a price tag on it.

Rio is a world wide celebrity, he has connections to lots of high rolling celebs and has enough cash to bank roll the whole shebang on his own for the rest of time should he so wish. The mag has already earned some good press from The Sun newspaper which should help with it’s initial start up and I for one would suggest you check it out. It could quite possibly be the best electronic magazine on the web, just click the picture above to enjoy the Rio ego trip.