Thanks for the comments and thoughts about where this magazine should be seen and viewed. We really have enjoyed producing this first issue and we hope everyone enjoys the way the digital publication is designed and looks along with its diverse content!
I have been in the design and print industry for many many, too many to be honest, years along side owning and running Flashpoint Fireworks. I have worked, and still do, with traditionally designed and printed magazines which are then turned into PDF magazines that can be viewed on the internet as page turn publications using the PDFs from the magazine. This is NOT what we wanted to produce for this magazine. We wanted to produce something that was new, exciting, dynamic and never been done within our firework industry before. The magazine layout is not like a traditional magazine, the publication will never be printed. In some cases the page designs may look like a printed magazine page but the key is with digital magazine designs you have an infinite canvas to work with. With scrolling text and slideshows combined with links to other mediums such as videos and photos all seen from within the same App that you never actually leave. All of this is just not possible in traditional print magazines that are then turned into page turn PDFs for the web.
For now we will be sticking with Apple iPad Tablets and also Android Tablets. The reason for this is plain and simple, time!
The magazine is produced for an iPad at present and then all the files have to be converted and then re-laid out into a new Android grid for each page. This takes a fair amount of time and effort... well to be honest many many hours! We do this because we want the user experience to be as good on each platform and this is why we have for now just chosen Tablets only to work with. We end up with four versions of the magazine as it is, high res for HD Tablets and lower res for standard definition Tablets, for both Apple and Android. If we were to add Apple iPhones and also Android phones there would be even more work each issue to do. This is mainly down to the screen size of these phone devices. All the pages would have to be re-laid out again into single columns because we would want the design of the publication to fit the device it is being viewed on. Call us perfectionists but that’s how we want our magazine to viewed by the user, the best possible experience.
But, there is always a but, in saying all that if in the future the magazines advertising grows significantly and we feel it justifies the additional time being spent on it then we will produce the magazine for all devices including Kindle Fire as well through Amazon.
As others have already pointed out we do also have greater control of the publication with it being distributed through the iTunes store and also Google Play. We can see where in the world the publication is being downloading more and where we need to concentrate our efforts on publicising the magazine further. It’s amazing that the magazine has only been out a few days and we have had people contacting us from around the globe like India and the Far East already!
Tony and I are very very proud of what has been produced in this first issue and the response has been amazing from across the world! We really hope that this continues and look forward to bringing you firstly the Android version of the magazine and then the second Issue for both platforms at the start of September, later this year.
If you have any ideas or articles for the next issue please email either Tony -
[email protected], Many Thanks.
Kind Regards,
Jason & Tony
Pyrotechnic Magazine
PS – We just wanted to give him a shout out as well, Steve Jacobs! For all his help reading through and in some cases re-writing all the articles in issue one! He loved it really
