M@ilbox

MyAtari in print?
After reading the survey feedback in MyAtari 37, I wondered what a PDF version of the magazine would look like. I thought I'd have a go at mocking up the magazine's contents to look like a printed magazine in a PDF document.

I've not done anything like this before, so I'm not sure it's "up to scratch". I've compared it to back issues of Atari Computing etc and it's obvious that something is missing, but I'm not sure what!

If you like it, please mail me back with any suggestions for improvements and perhaps there could be a PDF with each issue.

Mark Phillips, UK

Shiuming Lai replies
Impressive! Thank you very much for sharing this, it really puts a smile on my face. You've obviously put a lot of work into this PDF mock-up, and it certainly looks good. What's missing? Advertisements, perhaps. The pages also look a little too cramped, more white space is needed, to look like a professionally designed magazine. A brilliant first effort, nevertheless.

As for a corresponding PDF every month, it's an interesting proposal, though I have to ask you the same questions we asked of ourselves when considering the idea before:

1. Above all else, what would be the real, value-added benefits of a PDF version?
2. We design for the web. It's difficult to translate this to print layout. There are elements in your PDF version that are additional to or slightly modified from the original - who will take responsibility for overseeing quality control and ensuring it is up to date? Often is the case when you're working on a project like that, you lose sight of the forest for the trees. I know I do! Would the PDF versions be out at the same time? During the course of a current issue, many (often minor) details can and do change as we aim to stamp out bugs.
3. Most of our graphics, especially the cover picture, are created at the resolution you see on the web, and as you can see with the cover picture, they don't scale up very well and it looks grotty (no fault of your own, of course). This would defeat the point of a high-resolution PDF.

My personal opinion is that you clearly have good skills and could perhaps utilize them better than to duplicate existing material in a different format. It takes the MyAtari team a lot of effort to create an issue of the magazine every month and I'm quite sure anyone would soon go insane with trying to "fit" our format into print, either cutting things down or padding them out.

The whole idea of doing MyAtari as a web format magazine was because we had considered the other options, and decided upon this as something we could manage most effectively and economically. That said, we have invested far more time and money than we ever anticipated!

I just think it's a lot of work for one person and you would probably find the process tedious very quickly. Does anyone else have views on this? Please let us know.

A healthy obsession
This morning, while font-hunting through the web, I stumbled upon your article about the Atari JIL logo...  (hey it's arial...  :-)

Enjoyed reading about your research very much, it was yet another reason why I thank my lucky stars for living in the internet age... Anyhow, before I start going on & on about me & my lucky stars, just wanted to say "hey fellow weirdo" - as ever since I can remember me being able to write my own name (early '80s - born in 1977), through my lifetime, the Atari logo (JIL hehe) has been to me a lifetime romance, sentimental to some extent even...  one of those little obsessions which have led me to sketch a lot of scratch versions of it, always close, but never (until a couple of years ago, after getting comfortable with vectors in Photoshop & Fireworks...), had I gotten this Fuji logo that you wrote about in your article.

Phew...  yet another thing I'm not single oddball about.

Sergio Valdez

Shiuming Lai replies
No, you are perfectly normal, for an Atari nut! '77 was a great year, congratulations.

Hello Matt, I have just managed to sell the rest of the Atari items I was advertising and I would just like to say thank you for the use of the advertising facility on your web site. This has not only enabled me to sell the property of a deceased relative and therefore raise some money for the estate but it also means that the computers, games and printers etc, which were in good working order could be passed on to someone who will get some use out of them.

Pauline

Matthew Bacon replies
You're welcome, Pauline. Glad to have been of help.

MyAtari magazine - M@ilbox, December 2003