affinity publisher SEW Region Magazine

[SEW Region Magazine]

Hi. This is our latest magazine that was done completely in Publisher ( with a little help from the personas) Friends say that each of our issues is getting better seeing that all the articles and photos are the work of amateurs. Due to Covid, missed deadlines, and many other reasons, we got there in the end, over 180 pages !!!! I am still having problems getting the TOC right, it needs a lot of adjustments to get it to line up https://www.calameo.com/read/005606910c769823ec8c4

[dannyg9]

Taking into account all of the issues faced in putting this together, I only have a couple of suggestions. Love the cover. I love the content. I would make the font size throughout smaller and consistent from front to back. I like that it's in formatted justified blocks. In making the font smaller it would leave room for the second suggestion and that would be to treat as many of the images as is editorially possible like the one on page 29. You've got an awful lot of white space and correct me if I'm wrong but your showcasing the art and the process. I like that the magazine doesn't "get in the way of the art."

[SEW Region Magazine]

Thank you for your suggestions.  This magazine was designed to showcase our art to as many people as possible. It is to show that we are "not little old ladies sitting in the corner embroidering tray cloths" Embroidery and textile ore an art form at all levels.We are so pleased that this was picked up

[GarryP]

In addition to the comments above, I would add:

• The use of margins and white space could be more uniform across the whole document- e.g. the image in page 7 comes right to the edge of the page while on other pages the images are near the edge of the page, and in others there is a big gap. If you pick one way of doing it then the whole thing will look more ‘cohesive’.
• Some images have plain borders, some have ‘fancy’ borders, while others do not have any border. I think I can see what you were trying to do but sticking with one way and only using another way selectively may help give the magazine a ‘cleaner’ overall look.
• Having text go over the fold – pages 12/13 – is usually frowned upon. You can do it if you want to but it’s not a ‘normal’ thing to do.
• On page 19 an image has overwritten the page number - this needs to be checked everywhere.
• The text on page 58 has been partially obscured by the image.
• Making the text smaller – as mentioned above – should allow you to make the magazine smaller – 186 pages seems a bit excessive to me, in this case.
• Check the pages where the table of contents leads people to – e.g. the link to Sara Rickard misses out the previous two pages.

It’s a nice magazine overall, but you may find that it will improve with some little ‘nips and tucks’ here and there.

[SEW Region Magazine]

Thank you for your input it is much appreciated, I will take your comments on board. 

As the magazine is digital and will never be printed, and many of our readers only pick up the link once so I try to make each article as distinctive and memorable as possible reflecting the work of the artist. The readership is world wide on pc's and laptop with some tablet and a few phones. Although this is slowly changing.

 Having said that can you advise me what size font I should be using - at the moment it is times new Roman 11 or equivalent ie Book Antiqua 10, Centry Schoolbook 10, & Dejavu Sands 9 

Regarding the TOC I am never sure if the link should go to the article or to the Bio. When reading a piece by the artist I like to read about the artist first especially if i don't know the, but looking down a table of contents many people like to pick out the articles by people they know. can you advise please

Yes, I will have to learn to be more diligent regarding presentation

 thanks your help

 

[GarryP]

I can understand you wanting to have each article looking different to distinguish them, and that’s something a lot of magazines do, but I think (and this is very much just my own opinion) you might find that you can give the magazine an overall ‘style’ while giving each article its own distinctive look within that style.
For example, mixing so many different fonts can be tiring on the reader. So many different typefaces to read can make it look like the magazine was created by appending articles written by different people without any oversight.
If you keep to a ‘standard’ typeface (and spacing, etc.) for body text then that’s something which carries on through the publication and makes it look more like it is a ‘curated’ magazine.  You can use different typefaces for headings and other things but if you try and keep the total number of fonts down to two or three, except for special ‘headlines’, I think it will look better overall.

For a good example, look at any printed magazine you can find, and have a look at what looks the same no matter which articles you are reading. You will start to notice a ‘house style’ which is the same over the whole publication. That’s what I think you might want to try.

It’s difficult to advise on which font size to use as we don’t know the size of your pages or your readership.
If you are using 9-11pt then your pages seem to be very small, or your fonts have large glyphs.
Also, if you are trying to cater for people with poor visibility then your text may need to be a little larger than ‘normal’.
All I can say is that the text, as I view it on-screen in my browser, looks too large.

TOCs can be difficult to get ‘right’.
I would advise looking at using a multi-level TOC where the ‘section’ is at the highest level and the ‘sub-sections’ are at lower levels.
For example:
Feature on So-and-so
--- So-and-so’s details
--- The main article by So-and-so
--- Extra information about So-and-so’s work
Next Feature
--- Details about this feature
--- etc.
--- etc.
You can set multi-level TOCs by giving each Paragraph Style a different level in the TOC Panel (press the ‘hamburger’ to the right of the style name).

Hopefully some of that advice has been useful.

[SEW Region Magazine]

Thanks, I will give it a try in the next one, I am hopeful to be able to get the December edition out by the end of January.

[dannyg9]

Just a sample of the style I use for Skin Art TOC. The magazine is set up as a series of articles/interviews and the only stand out would be the pages that are strictly galleries. Hope this helps.

SkinArt177_TOC.pdf

[SEW Region Magazine]

Thanks, this is helpful and I love the colour. The only thing I don't understand is the font size, Other than the TOC I find it difficult to read and the section on the bottom impossible. I know I would have a lot of complaints from my readers with this size font.  I used to use A4 but have now change to 1200x1600 px with a DPI of 300, would this make the difference? 

 Where I find the TOC difficult is that I get everything lined up, then realise I have an error, update and everything moves back to where it was and needs  lining up and kerning again.  You might be interested in this magazine, it provides a more comprehensive review of the books being published. The layout is more conventual, but a little boring!!!

This is only it's second edition but it received over 2,000 hits. https://www.calameo.com/read/00560691063e7c89cd8b0

[dannyg9]

It's actually a print magazine first and foremost. There are digital versions available and they can be viewed at any size. The disclaimer text at the bottom is basically for legal purposes and most people will never read it. The masthead is usually constant and it's about the same size as industry standard. Again, most people don't read it. The actual TOC portion is a legible size. I may be stating the obvious, but if you're not doing it already, get in the habit of SAVING what you do. Save often. All the time. If you're trying out various type, spacing, etc., try making a copy of the text frame and place it on the artboard. Sort of like a "safety." 

[SEW Region Magazine]

Thank you, yes I do save but probably not as often as i should. What I don't do is save as examples for use later.