The Airsoft Handbook

[sounguru]

i have worked as a graphic designer for about 9 years before i started doing sushi.

with desktop publishing the way it is, everyone thinks that they can throw up a filter or two, choose a font and they have a logo.

people dont know what GOOD design is. or what makes it GOOD, other then, " it looks cool to me"

then when they go to have it printed, and the printer tells them you can have 12 spot colors, but each plate is going to cost you 28 bucks, then the make ready and clean up, plus the stock you chose is far too light to hold the ink without bleeding, you will need to choose a much more expensive stock.


so what you thought would only cost 5 bucks per unit, is now like 75 bucks a unit. and impossible to print.


in looking at your document, it needs a lil more "reworking".

some of your headers and footers are uniform, then you loose it.
some of the pages have a ghosted image, that might not hold up so well to printing. some of the ads need a designers help.

looks better as a e'zine then a print media.

Never planned on making hard copies just an e-zine

[KA-BAR]

ooop's

[Matt]

Forgive me, I'm not trying to troll here but what is the point of having it in magazine format if it's not going to be printed? Doesn't that defeat the purpose of laying it out like a magazine? You are throwing out all of the convenient features of a website so that people can click a left or right arrow to flip pages. If it's online, why not take advantage of that and write a blog instead? Blogging would probably get you more traffic in the long run, would it not?

[sounguru]

Forgive me, I'm not trying to troll here but what is the point of having it in magazine format if it's not going to be printed? Doesn't that defeat the purpose of laying it out like a magazine? You are throwing out all of the convenient features of a website so that people can click a left or right arrow to flip pages. If it's online, why not take advantage of that and write a blog instead? Blogging would probably get you more traffic in the long run, would it not?

People can print it if they want to on their own but I'm not gonna do any printing nor build it for print at this point. Although if you print it on a standard home printer it does work well in that format.

Personally I like the look of a magazine and enjoy reading them in that style more than I do a blog on a site. Plus I can download it all into one PDF and read it at my leisure in that format if I want.

The style may not be everyone's cup of tea I know but on my end it is easier to build in this format than in a blog format since I'm not a blog fan.

And Matt I don't look at it as a Troll question at all. Feedback of a positive nature is always welcome and I may do some of what you suggest after the 1st of the year when I go in and overhaul the web site giving people both options.

[LiberalPacifist]

I personally hate reading blogs, but this is readable for me.

[KA-BAR]

ummm as for the print it yourself theory.

you need to warn people about all of the 4/4 you have in your "E'Zine"

it will cost the end user just as much to take it to kinkos or something then to have it suck up 3 or 4 cartridges worth of ink....either way, your product is very hard to be printed in the first place.


if it was all greyscale, then hey, no problem.

[Matt]

Well, I suppose that's understandable if that's the format you like. And like you said, if you build a following you can always branch out later. I have dabbled with the idea of starting an Airsoft magazine, but at the speed new information comes to the website it always seems like anything I print will be months behind.

[sounguru]

ummm as for the print it yourself theory.

you need to warn people about all of the 4/4 you have in your "E'Zine"

it will cost the end user just as much to take it to kinkos or something then to have it suck up 3 or 4 cartridges worth of ink....either way, your product is very hard to be printed in the first place.


if it was all greyscale, then hey, no problem.

I did print it myself and it wasn't too bad on the ink dept. If you print it on standard paper using document not photo setting.

A grayscale version might be doable in the future for those that really want to print it.

But hey I never meant for it to be printed in the future if it takes off and there is a market for it maybe, but that is not in a foreseeable future at this point.

Well, I suppose that's understandable if that's the format you like. And like you said, if you build a following you can always branch out later. I have dabbled with the idea of starting an Airsoft magazine, but at the speed new information comes to the website it always seems like anything I print will be months behind.

Magazines will always be behind and that is why finding other avenues like game ideas and interviews will still keep people reading.

By the way I uploaded a new version that I hope got most of the spelling mistakes.