[lore] Draft of the next edition

[David Basden]

On Wed, Aug 16, 2006 at 02:28:56AM +0800, Grahame Bowland wrote:
> To save coments on stuff I've already fixed, here's an update:
> http://grahame.angrygoats.net/Lore.pdf
> 
> On 16/08/06, Grahame Bowland <grahame at angrygoats.net> wrote:
> > Hey guys
> >
> > Here's a draft of the next edition of Murphy's Lore. Please don't
> > spread it around too much; I think it's almost ready for printing :-)
> >
> > Bring on the constructive criticism!


Here are some attempts at constructive critisism.  Apologies for lack
of spelling and grammer, and keep in mind i'm in a bitchy mood:

	- If you're using Microsoft Publisher, please don't, otherwise,
	it's easy to get a few of the pages to look better

	- Try to avoid overuse of boxes with line-borders around them,
	and definately not next to each other. The ones you have, keep
	at least 4-5mm from the box edges to any actual text, and don't
	be afraid to bring any art closer to the edge. You're looking
	to visually break up different items, and too many boxes make
	that hard to do at a glance

	- Avoid font-crime. Too many fonts on the same page is pretty
	ugly. Magazines ignore this because magazines have pictures of
	hot girls/guys to distract from any other layout pain that might
	exist. We need either soft-core pr0n, or fonts that don't look
	like ComicSans.

	- If you're sticking with B5 or A5 size, be really careful with
	a 3 column layout; you might have a hard time actually keeping
	text readable through linebreaks. Maybe pick one of the Dr
	Murphy responses and put it in a 2 column box inset. YMMV. Your
	use of (differently formatted) reversed titles is a great; It's
	standing out without too much eye pain. Your graphics placement
	is great. Page 6 is a really good example of good layout without
	needing boxes to deliniate stuff

	- Print stuff out on a laser printer. It's near impossible to
	tell on-screen what something is going to look like on a smaller
	or larger than A4 sheet, and what looks good on A4 might look
	really hard to read, or overly cluttered on A5/B5

	- For thick dotted lines as rules, see above comments re: ms
	publisher and pr0n.

	- Your use of text wrapping around images, and background images
	is great. If it's going to be printed or photocopied make sure
	the shade of background images is around 20% of black, and that
	you use a screen rather than relying on laser printer dithering
	for all images to avoid images looking almost all black, almost
	all white, or just crap. As Davyd mentioned, make sure that the
	resolution is enough; ~150-200dpi for non-lineart, and higher
	for lineart.

	- Don't underline links and make them blue for printed text. The
	centering on the bottom of page 3 is kinda weird, and might need
	to be an inset box or something different to flow right. YMMV.

	- Most importantly for text flow, make sure your hyphenation is
	either done manually, or switched off altogether. The program
	you're using is butchering your text with it. Try to use wider
	columns for articles with bigger words so it flows better to
	the eye.

More importantly, outright ignore any of these points if what I say if
it looks crap, or i'm just being overly bitchy.

Cheers,

David