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full circle magazine - #1 released!full circle magazine - #1 released!Posted Jun 8, 2007 18:50 UTC (Fri) by johnkarp (subscriber, #39285)Parent article: full circle magazine - #1 released!
Both full circle and pclinuxos magazines seem to be very heavy on the ink,
More subjectively, I think all the gradients and such give it the look of
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full circle magazine - #1 released! Posted Jun 10, 2007 0:45 UTC (Sun) by jordanb (subscriber, #45668) [Link] Given how cheap laserjets have become I don't think there is much point in having inkjets anymore. For not much more than $100 you can have a printer that measures its cartridges in thousands rather than hundreds of pages. I bought a used Lexmark Optra S from a leasing company five years ago for $75. I put one cartidge in it when I got it, and put a fresh one in a few months ago.
Also most laserjets are networked Postscript printers so printing from linux is as easy as sending a postscript file to the LPR port.
That said I completly agree about these magazines. It almost seems like they're afraid their message isn't good enough so they have to distract you with their layout. Alternatly, it looks like a very design-heavy website put to paper. I mean, black text on a blue background? And why is *everything* sans-serif?
Rather than gimp and scribus they should have used TeX, I think it would have given them a much better starting point, with the ccontent first, and then whatever graphics are *needed* added judiciously.
full circle magazine - #1 released! Posted Jun 10, 2007 21:04 UTC (Sun) by eklitzke (subscriber, #36426) [Link] The problem isn't that they used a sans-serif font -- in general sans-serif fonts are more legible, especially at smaller fonts sizes -- it's that they chose an unattractive Comic Sans-like font.
I also disagree with you regarding your suggestion to use TeX. I consider my Tex/LaTeX skills to be far above most TeXers because I use it so much (I'm a mathematician, by training), but even I wouldn't dare to use LaTeX for something that needs an even moderately complicated layout. The layout/positioning options available in LaTeX are inordinately complicated, and most people will find the Adobe suite (and Scribus) much more suitable for complicated layouts -- certainly most publishing houses do.
full circle magazine - #1 released! Posted Jun 11, 2007 2:27 UTC (Mon) by jordanb (subscriber, #45668) [Link] > in general sans-serif fonts are more legible
I'm not sure what evidence you could possibly have for this. Find me a sans font more readable (not to mention beautiful) than, say Palentino, or the better variations of Jenson.
I've seen it argued that sans is better for on-line display on account of the deficient resolution of displays (compare my LCD panel's 90ppi to my printer's draft mode of 300dpi, or its quality mode of 1200dpi). Still I think this is exacerbated by poor hinting and anti aliasing and isn't intrinsic to the style of font.
As a poll of professional typesetters, look at pretty much any book, it will have a serifed font for the body text. In my reading I can only recall a few poorly-typeset computer books that use a sans font. I'm going to guess from my experience that something like 99% of all substantial works typeset by professionals for the page use serifed fonts.
> but even I wouldn't dare to use LaTeX for something that
Please note that I said TeX rather than LaTeX. LaTeX does tend to make it difficult to deviate too far from its predefined styles and probably would be a poor tool for them to use.
On the question of "complicated layout," however that's pretty much the reason why I suggested TeX. Less is more when you're trying to produce anything more serious than People Magazine, and even People Magazine is less layout-heavy than these magazines. I think TeX would help force better behavior.
> it's that they chose an unattractive Comic Sans-like font
Their font doesn't look anything like comic sans, except for the rounded ends in the bold. It's too symmetrical, and with no forward lean. If I had to guess I'd say it's some bastardization of grotesque. I agree, though, that beyond the serif vs. sans question, this font in particular is a poor choice.
TeX etc. for typesetting complex layouts Posted Jun 11, 2007 12:26 UTC (Mon) by sanjoy (subscriber, #5026) [Link] I agree about using TeX rather than LaTeX. I used plain TeX (and eplain) for over 15 years very happily. To avoid reinventing lots of wheels, I recently switched from TeX to ConTeXt, skipping LaTeX entirely. ConTeXt was originally designed for school math books, which have lots of figures and diagrams scattered all over. It is well engineered and has support for complex layouts, and I use it for my university-level mathematics and physics textbooks. Here is one. Most of plain TeX still works unchanged, so I could use my old TeX knowledge and add bits of ConTeXt as I learnt it.
full circle magazine - #1 released! Posted Jun 11, 2007 8:26 UTC (Mon) by eru (subscriber, #2753) [Link] Given how cheap laserjets have become I don't think there is much point in having inkjets anymore.The size and weight of the device! An inkjet can be made smaller than any laser printer with its drum mechanims. Some models can be folded up when not in use to become about the size of a book. Significant for people who cannot dedicate too much fixed space for their computing gear.
full circle magazine - #1 released! Posted Jun 11, 2007 12:17 UTC (Mon) by sanjoy (subscriber, #5026) [Link] I agree that inkjet cartridges are more expensive than laser-printer cartridges. But color inkjet printers are much cheaper than color laser printers. Also, inkjet printers do not emit that copier odor, which gives me a headache when I am around active laser printers.
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