Hello everyone

Your first issue of ANIME-IMA! is out, and can be downloaded from:

http://www.digitalnatives.co.za/pdf/anime_ima_vol1_1.pdf (10.3 MBytes)


A HUGE THANK-YOU goes to:
Jay
Epsilon
and all the contributors, especially Baka Sakura

This is the first hit, the layout can be fine tuned and improved so discuss, discuss, discuss...

You will notice the layout is not overbearing or very fancy like Otakumag- this is done with purpose. This is a mature and level-headed anime magazine, catering for our age group.

This is the first and last time I do a magazine in Corel X5... Corel is fine for vector art like instruction manuals. It chokes with this magazine and wants more RAM than my computer's processor can address, so from here on in, its Adobe InDesign, which Baka Sakura is also familiar with. Next time I will also be organizing better and hopefully if we have another layout specialist on board we may get this magazine done in less time = less stress on all concerned.

Those who sent in articles past the deadline- don't worry, we'll use that in the next issue!

Feel free to write me, or discuss the magazine in this topic

Cheers vir eers guys and girls... I am off to go and sleep for 21 hours, whereafter I plan to indulge in some serious guitar shredding! (of course I might have to forego that as my son INSISTS I teach him the fine points of kicking a soccer ball)

PS: Blazerfrost - Sorry dude, I tried to get the mag done sooner, so you could read it on the plane while you flew out to the USA, I just couldn't make it. When you arrive there safely you can pull a copy down.

Oh, is it ok for me to pimp the sh!t out of this?

You will notice the layout is not overbearing or very fancy like Otakumag- this is done with purpose. This is a mature and level-headed anime magazine, catering for our age group.

Hahaha, you wound us

Anyway, just wanted to pop in and say this is pretty damn cool. I've not had the chance to have a look at it yet, but I'll try and remember to do so tonight. I suppose I won't offer design critique (as I often do for people, and it's something I enjoy) due to my relation to Otakumag (ie, may cause politics/drama/spongecakes), but I'm eager to see how it looks!

I'm certain everyone who worked on Otakumag will find this awesome (well, everyone but one) - it's nice to see community projects like this.

Oh, btw, Tu jokes that "[it] uses the same content page as otaku... or at least the left side bar haha"

Good luck with the mag! Here's hoping it has a promising future!

EDIT: OH MY GOD the ":p" emoticon on this site is both frightening and confusing D:

Thanks for this Jason.

I was sick in bed the whole of yesterday...still feeling like I'm dying...
The mag is looking great!

There are a few things that we can look at for Issue 2...I already have notes made...

To echo my esteemed colleague Kharrak, Congrats. It is good to see others holding the scene together and pushing forward.

Unlike him however I am going to crit your design simply because if nobody does, things cannot evolve. I too see the influence of Otaku mag. it seems like a stripped down version. It may work well in print but loses impact in PDF. Hell even Otaku with its whizz bang POW loses impact in PDF. Such is the nature of design. That said it is refreshing... evolve it and make it more unique as the months go by.

point 1: Text.
 3 columns of plain text hurts the eyes on screen (even on the retina display) use pull quotes and info boxes to break things up. Check any print mag. they all do it. they give choice info to the viewer to let him decide whether he is going to read the whole article. Without them you force the reader to skim each article which is not so reader friendly. Very few people read a mag, word for word, cover to cover in one go.. they read their favs first and the rest in order of importance (according to their own tastes) over time. You need to give him more info to prioritize his reading.

Point 2: Size.
I have a 400mbit/s fiber to home connection. Your servers are in SA so I had to wait t SA slooooooooooooooow speeds. it was tedious (maybe peeps at home are used to it but it was horrific for me after 3 years of real broadband). find a way to trim things so it loads faster. It shouldn't be too hard.

Point 3: Media
If you wanna go print in future (and I hope you do because SA needs it desperately) design your print version and print it.
Design your electronic versions for the screen. make your sizes, speeds and text display friendly. 72dpi lightweight work. There is a reason the majority of online publications are NOT pdfs. I realize that a magazine style release schedule makes better distribution methods more difficult but then why not make it an interactive experience...to make up for the slower turnaround compared to blogs and online mags. Use flash ( flash catalyst makes it easy and quick). consider a digital magazine aimed at tablets supported by a proper website and then go to print when you have a consumer base and advertising revenue (a bit like wired but backwards).

Optimization and simplicity is key. If you want to reach more than just the die hard Otaku you need to make it an easy and pleasurable experience for them.

Dont stress too much though. Look at Otaku issue 1 and see how it evolved We had our fair share of criticism too and how we handled it varied a great deal (I am sad to say). You will undoubtedly go from strength to strength if you take your crits to heart and persevere. Your first go was a valiant effort. I hope you move forward and take your work to the next level and do something good for the scene in SA.

You have taken the torch where we left off. now get out there and set shit on fire!

Hi there

My comment if I may...

I had to start somewhere with a design, I had nothing to work from. The only element I borrowed from Otakumag, as pointed out was the index page because I had nothing else to work from that looked OK. The other stuff, well, that was actually from NewType USA I believe the Otakumag staff took their licks from that publication, as did I 

Anyway, its a community driven project. I really don't care about small nitty gritty details like this, if the community or, rather, the anime societies in SA want certain publications in certain formats, I will do it accordingly. As as Jay said, we're grown-ups here, I did the layout, I can take the criticism about that. In any case, doing this all alone is a mistake as I've come to realize. I didn't have the time to edit text and check for grammar and style, in most cases I did an import from the source document/file, and fixed the obvious but nothing more. As Jay has correctly pointed out, there needs to be more people working on this thing. Lastly, I do not profess to be any layout professional either, I happen to be doing my employer's DTP, that's purely because they're too cheap to hire someone to do it and I happened to succeed at doing the instruction manuals really well- why hire someone else when you can get one employee to do the work of four or more...

ano... does... noone catch the "anime ima" thing.... can anyone say art nouveau? (or in this case anime nouveau >.> ) [yes IMA and nouveau means the same thing... just a different language... and for the clueless it means now >.>)

Ok... I love that we have a mag again! ... even if its only electronic... >.> but i have to agree with darc and kharrak on this one =3=
BUUUUUT this is the first release so things can only get better from here on out right?
My comments is that its too short, the fan art section is too small... and needs many many more fanart >.> (which i will be glad to contribute to ), the japanese tv now page's text is very hard to read (try maybe using a white outline on the text to bring it out or sth >.< i'm not a GD so please dont kill me for saying that >.> ) the uh... "how to draw manga" page could use better... drawings... i'm sorry i'm quite critical when it comes to art things... seeing as I am in that 3rd year stage of illustration and all (and the bloody idiot lecturers HATE manga meh!) >.>
Oh and it could use comments on the pictures (like in the nag where they make fun of the games and all by adding a funny text to a picture ) and it could use maybe mentions of some music? and live action japanese shows >.< and a "how to speak japanese" kind of a section... and and i dont know maybe im asking for too much
But i really like the name anime ima... both as an artist and a japanese language lover (and otaku >.>)

Been reading through it and I have to say that it's a superb effort from all of those involved. I'm looking forward to seeing it grow even more! Hey, maybe one day it'll even be printed