Sphere Magazine - Issue 002

[aaron_j_ban]

hey folks, Issue 002 of Sphere Magazine is online. Let me know what

you think.

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Thanks.

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AJB

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<img src="http://www.spheremag.com/cover_02.jpg" />

[aaron_j_ban]

sorry, forgot the link:

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<a href="http://www.spheremag.com" target="_blank">www.spheremag.com</a>

[EricM]

Well, I loved the first issue, but now with xp2, I can't past your newsletter sign up, without signing up...I hope it's just because I'm tired...

[EricM]

great content Aaron, love to see this coming out of Canada too!

[derek_c.]

I couldn't see the site, because it was a Flash driven web site.<br>

You know, there are millions of Anti-Flash people in the world.<br>

[EricM]

but not many of them are into the visual arts

[thomas_sullivan]

i signed up on the first issue, saw the mag the other day thru the email notice.........keep it up, no disappointments on this end...

[jim_gifford]

Aaron, it is a pretty little book. I do think it is silly to have a double truck contents spread without words, and to give almost half of that space to the num-bo-jumbo issue number. The only parts of the magazine that really NEED to be located with a table of contents are the parts you do not list... the read/watch/click bits at the end.

 

"Sphere" makes "USA Today" seem like a Tolstoy novel.

 

Be well,

[jim_gifford]

One more thing... even with a broadband connection it takes longer to download than it does to read. And there's nothing to do while downloading except watch the "click and drag from the corners" animation over and over again. That is a cruel joke when your bread and butter is being visually entertaining! Put something else there for readers to enjoy while the content is being force-fed down the line. Low-res versions of some of the photography (even tightly cropped hints and snippets of it?) could serve as appetizers.

 

Do we get a commission on this stuff?

 

Be well,

[Brad_]

Aaron, nice work. Great content and images. Flash and the book page metaphor works

well and the images are gorgeous.

 

But, when a new window opens to show the current issue, it opens up to the full size of my

monitor - that's really obnoxious, monopolizing all of your screen's real estate. Especially

when the page content only takes about 30% of the new window dimensions - no reason

for that.

 

Eric is right on his last comment.

[thomas_sullivan]

I have a feeling, from the comments made, that some of you are missing a really neat feature of this mag.............run your mouse over the photographer's name, and most of the manufacturers and designers names, and there is a clickable link to their website.

 

Really nice feature Aaron......btw - Arash Moalleni's link goes somewhere else........not to the website.

[thomas_sullivan]

...oh, I see, Arash's site is under construction.......never mind

[btmuir]

I'm running XP and can't get Flash 7 to install. Any ideas?

[thomas_sullivan]

<br><br>Don't know, maybe this will help<br><br><a href="http://www.macromedia.com/support/flash/ts/documents/common_player_install.htm">Macromedia Flash Support</a>

[derek_c.]

Flash animations are being created because web designers think they can "WOW" people.<br>

But 99% of the time they do quite opposit. It's very irritating.<br>

[EricM]

Please don't state your opinions as facts. I like flash for navigation purposes and the creativity that designers come up with. I agree, some are bad at it. However, I put up with a few bad designers to tolerate the ones that do work. If the viewing audience actually felt like you say, Flash would have died years ago.

[elliot_n]

hmmm, what am i doing wrong?

 

i've followed the link, clicked on 'current issue', and waited for the download - but i

only get to see issue 001...

 

where's issue 002?

 

(mac osx, 10.2.8, safari)

[thomas_sullivan]

just click on the pic of the girl...

 

.......however, I would have expected current issue to work........maybe there's not been an update to that link?

[thomas_sullivan]

nah.........current issue works too.......try hitting "refresh" before you click on current issue.....

[elliot_n]

thanks for the tip, but it hasn't worked...

 

cleared history, emptied cache, quit and restarted safari...

 

but still get issue 001 (the one with beach/bikini story)...

 

?????

[aaron_j_ban]

hey folks, thanks for the replies. To respond to a few:

 

Eric, you may have a popup blocker in effect. There is no forced newsletter signup. I find that to be just rude myself. Check to make sure you don't have anything blocking the popup.

 

Derek, if you don't like Flash then don't like it. But why come in here and whine about it? I like it and so do about 30K other people that viewed the last issue.

 

Thanks Thomas.

 

Jim, you're looking for reasons to bitch. The purpose of the TOC was to show what was in the rest of the issue, it's not intended to be a guide through the issue because the file is linear. I saw no reason to include the short little sections (Read, Listen, Go, etc.) because they aren't feature articles and are secondary content.

 

As for the load time, the server may be running slow today because it's being hit very hard. Otherwise, you should get broadband because this is not a dial-up site. If you've got broadband access the load time should be no longer than 5 seconds.

 

I can also name-drop Tolstoy, congratulations on reading although I would never understand why you would read USA Today.

 

Commission? Why? Because you like to find reasons to complain?

 

Brad, thanks for the comments. I understand your frustration with the fullscreen pop. I'm not a big fan of them either. BUT, I had no choice in this case because of the dimensions. In order to ensure that everyone saw the full dimensions of the book without scrollbars I needed to buy myself some extra real-estate at the top of the browser. Some folks have their browser still set to "factory" config. which means I would lose about 150 px at the top. I really really needed that space so I decided to go with the full-screen pop. Keep in mind that about 40% of users still have their resolution set to 800*600.

 

Also, I couldn't reduce the size of the book because then it would throw off my design grid and also screw up the 1/3 ratio from a regular printed magazine which would mess with the translation of 9*12's and pre-existing print ads into this format.

 

Trust me though, as soon as I see the res. stats for 800*600 drop below 15% I'll change it asap.

 

Thanks Thomas. It's partly our fault because I've been hesitant to add in big pointing flashing arrows saying "click here !!!". There's a couple of things about the magazine functionality-wise that could be missed. One is that you don't actually have to drag the pages to flip, you can just single-click anywhere on the white borders and the flip effect will go. You can also click really fast to get through a bunch of pages, you don't need to wait until the effect is done. Yes, Arash's site is under construction, I've been bugging him to get one online but we'll get to that soon enough.

 

Bruce, not sure about F7 install errors. What's the error that you're getting when you try to install? Also, you may want to do a manual uninstall of F6 before you install F7, perhaps there's something left behind that's tripping it up.

 

Derek, seriously, if you don't like it then don't look at it. Why waste your time to come in here and bitch? Shit, get something to do.

 

Elliot, I've just checked it out and rechecked the code and everything for the "Current Issue" button is fine. I'm not sure the problem that you're having but I'm guessing that it has to do with cacheing. If it keeps up please email me: ajb@spheremag.com and let me know. Thanks for including your browser specs, that really does help me with trouble-shooting.

 

Thanks again for the comments folks. Keep em coming (at least the intelligent critiques and praise, if you're gonna bitch about flash then go here: www.macromedia.com)

[elliot_n]

fwiw - i have the same problem on internet explorer 6 on my mac.

 

clear history, empty cache, quit, restart - but still issue 001 ('beauty and the beach',

'summer sublime', 'bad ass glass' etc.)

 

maybe it hasn't crossed the atlantic yet (i'm in london)

 

(keen to see the new issue - i think it's a very well executed project...)

[igord]

I like this one even better then previous. Great stuff.

[jim_gifford]

<<Jim, you're looking for reasons to bitch.>>

 

No, Aaron, I'm looking for things to critique, since you specifically said in your first post, "Let me know what you think" and you are on the masthead as creative guru.

 

<<The purpose of the TOC was to show what was in the rest of the issue, it's not intended to be a guide through the issue because the file is linear.>>

 

That doesn't make a lot of sense to me, Aaron. I'm not a creative director, I'm an editor for the last 17 years or so* including several years running a trade monthly (not photography... satellites). If it makes sense to you that the TOC can "show what [is] in the rest of the issue" without being "a guide through the issue" then okay, fine. I still say devoting all that space to repeating the figures zero and two (for your second issue) is unappealing, but just file that under the general "tell me what you think" comments and ignore it if you like. Your magazine, not mine. If the design satisfies your criteria, great.

 

<<I saw no reason to include the short little sections (Read, Listen, Go, etc.) because they aren't feature articles and are secondary content.>>

 

Again, your call. But I think some of your readers will consider those very pithy pages a signature element of your publication. And I'm just enough of a fuddy-duddy to want a TOC that actualy helps me locate the contents and helps me decide what parts to read right now.

 

I sense you want all readers to digest each issue in its entirety, and in sequence. Certainly the web site version is set up that way: you get the whole issue in a lump. That's not an unusual desire for a magazine staff... but it is an unrealistic one. Your product is not linear, it is episodic.

 

You're not asking for a LOT of time from your readers with each issue... but still there's no reason to avoid letting the readers elect sequences other than cover 1 through cover 4 in order.

 

<<As for the load time, the server may be running slow today because it's being hit very hard. Otherwise, you should get broadband because this is not a dial-up site. If you've got broadband access the load time should be no longer than 5 seconds. >>

 

Okay, I take your word for that. It took more like two minutes, this morning.

 

<<I can also name-drop Tolstoy, congratulations on reading although I would never understand why you would read USA Today.>>

 

I actually prefer "Sphere" to either Tolstoy or USA Today, personally. I was just observing that your publication has fewer words in general, and shorter text elements by design, than anything else I've run across recently. That's not a yardstick for its quality. Plenty of wordy publications are awful. Your publication is not awful. It's quite pleasant.

 

<<Commission? Why? Because you like to find reasons to complain?>>

 

I was just being snide. Sorry. Be well,

 

-Jim

 

*Having done something for 17 years doesn't mean I'm any damn good at it. Maybe I am. Maybe I'm not. The duration isn't the cause of esxcellence... lots of people do things badly for years and years. What I mean is, I have spent quite a while wrestling with the words in publications, and rather less time wrestling with avante garde design. -jg

[peterlee]

I really enjoyed the visual content of Sphere but found the website a bother. It's 10:30 pm and I have a high speed connection and it took about 30 - 45 seconds to load, normally I wouldn't have waited that long for a site to load and I would usually click past animations or flash to get to the content.

 

I think your content is really strong and the flash which is cool and interesting is overshadowing the good content.