… exhausting, time-consuming and costy. Let’s face it. All your social media profiles, your own blog, your website, your podcast or wherever you may surf on the world wide web: marketing gurus keep telling us to regularly generate and spread high-quality content. "High-quality" means content that can’t be found anywhere else and providing additional value for the content’s consumers - either as text, picture, audio or video. I regularly produce new content providing additional value, which cannot (or can hardly) be found anywhere else. I’ve been doing that for seven years. And yes: it is exhausting, time-consuming and costy. Every time I read "content generation" in my calender, I’m swearing. Honestly. But after all these years I can say: it is paying off in the long run. You "only" have to have stamina and creativity! OUTSOURCING OR DOING IT YOURSELF? Here and there, ghostwriters send me a request to write for me. Of course, you can outsource content generation. However, I personally don’t like that idea, to be very honest. My business is called HCG corporate designs, whereas HCG are my initials (Helene Clara Gamper). I believe, people visiting my website want to read content created by me in person. Also, my content is very specific and requires specific knowledge. Me explaining my skills to a ghostwriter would probably be as time-consuming as generating the content myself. Also, I would feel like a scammer pretending an article is from me, but it’s not. Authenticity is important. HOW TO PUT THIS PLAN INTO ACTION Every year, I produce approx. five new topics: as text for my website (hello to Google crawling!), as text in a PDF download on my website (handy for people who prefer to consume my content offline), as video (for Youtube and embedded in my website; handy for people who prefer to watch a video rather than reading a text), some topics as podcast (for podcast subscribers and embedded on my website; handy for people who let’s say sit in the car a lot listening to podcasts or audio books); every topic twice: in German and English language. If you know my tip section , you can maybe imagine how much work sticks behind all that. Again: I produce all of this content myself. As a single entrepreneur with mostly a full schedule, it’s not so easy to regularly create new, unique content. I’m sure you would like to know how I do this - without stressing out ;-) MY STRATEGY Here we go: Every time a good content topic idea comes to my mind, I write it down. Every year (yes, really every year!) I block two full weeks for content generation (7 days per week x approx. 8 hours per day). In my case, this is 25 December to 6 January. Around this time, people are in Christmas mode, I don’t get calls and emails, nobody disturbs me and I can fully concentrate on two weeks of non-stop working. Yes, I skip my Christmas holidays, but I have to be willing to bite this bullet. No pain, no gain! These two weeks of the year are solely reserved for my own content generation for the upcoming twelve months. Just the video productions I have to coordinate with the filming company. We normally shoot these approx. ten videos (5 topics x 2 languages each) within one day in January, which costs me a four-figure amount of money. The new content I then put on my website and I upload the videos on Youtube, so that I can then spread it on social media throughout the year. You see, Christmas - NYE - Twelfth Day holiday, this is my "hot phase" for content. ;-) This is the only way it works for me as I don’t have time for it during the year. Many businesses don’t have the resources for content creation because they are busy with their normal, "paid" work. This is normal. But: When you block content generation once or twice a year, you can do it! This is the key to sustainable and successful content generation, in my opinion. WHAT TO DO WITH ALL THIS CONTENT? The content is created - yipiiee! The biggest chunk of work is done. But one thing is still missing: You need some sort of editorial plan or concept to plan what to do with all this content. I always print a day calender for the upcoming twelve months (3 months on 1 sheet) and write down, which piece of content I post on which day. Also the topics should go well together. Let me give you an example: I post 3 x a week - on Twitter, LinkedIn, Xing and Facebook (I uploaded all of my new videos to Youtube already in January). Analysis tools help me to find out which days and times work best for my postings (most interactions, most of my followers online). I note down the best three times (i.e. Twitter: Mondays at 15:00, Wednesdays at 16:50, Thursdays at 17:00; Facebook: Thursdays at 16:15, Fridays at 18:00, Sundays at 21:00; etc.). I save these times as a reminder in my calendar. In addition to that, I pre-create postings on Facebook and schedule them to be automatically posted at certain times. This gives me some freedom and let’s me enjoy a weekend off. There are also automation tools in which you inject your postings upfront and those tools automatically do the social media postings for you. This is handy. I currently prefer to post manually, though, in most cases to force myself to check my social media profiles regularly and answer to comments for example. Otherwise, I would probably skip social media altogether and wouldn't bother any more. So I need to trick out myself here and there a little bit. Besides that, I block topics. This means, I post like this: infographic video 1, infographic client project A, infographic video 2, infographic client project B, link to my "infographic light" shop on my website etc. . A logical order of postings is important. WHAT CAN BE USED AS CONTENT? Besides regular, new articles and videos, I also work with a blog and post once a month (like this blog article that you are reading right now). Also here, I often pre-write articles three to four months in advance, if possible. That takes out the stress and allows me to post a blog article also when I would not have time for creating content. I admit, I have one big advantage: In my business, there are not many daily news. And if there is something that is time-sensitive, I can share it on my blog or write a short post on Twitter, LinkedIn or Facebook. Seven years of content creation means I have a lot of material I can still use today. Here and there, I update a blog article. Alongside with new client projects presented in my portfolio , this makes a fantastic content marketing mix: articles from my blog archive, new blog articles, client projects from my portfolio (old and new ones), quotes (as plain picture postings), videos, whitepapers, shop links, press articles and very important: great content from other people and entrepreneurs that I love sharing! MY - SO FAR - MOST SUCCESSFUL CONTENT About five years ago, I produced a video entitled "How I create an infographic" . Until now, it has reached about 43,000 views. Important to mention here: These are 100 % organic clicks! This video never ran through a paid marketing campaign. The video was shared and embedded on other websites, what I didn’t realise in the beginning. The only thing I remember recognising is the number of views going up rapidly. Much later I found out how many times the video had been shared. Then I received a few emails from design students from all over the world (mainly from India), sending me their infographic drafts and asking me for my opinion. One day, I even received an email from an Indian professor teaching design at a university who thanked me for the video and told me that my video was being used in his class to educate his students. I also got some job applications from designers who wanted to work for me. This still puts a smile on my face today. AND NOW IT’S YOUR TURN I hope, I could show you a method to regularly and sustainably generate content without stress and you can incorporate this in your business routine. I wish you a lot of success with it! If you need design help with it, please don’t hesitate to get in touch . I’ll be happy to help you. #marketing #timemanagement #content #onlinemarketing #online

Do you lack time? Do you want to be informed about latest news that you are really interested in? In real time? Then I can recommend Feedly . With Feedly, you are the editor-in-chief and can manually pick topics that you really want to read - all in one place. You basically subscribe to your desired topics and media/publishers and get the latest articles delivered right into your feed in real time. You can determine the look of your feed yourself (more or less compact, text-only mode, magazine style or card design). Interesting: You see when articles were published - i.e. 1 day ago (1d), 4 hours ago (4h) or 2 hours ago (2h). You can read the article/s you want to read - some articles are shorter, some longer. By tapping the check mark you can mark articles in your feed as read which removes them from your feed. The screen gets fed with new material. What I also like a lot is a message like "that’s it for today", as soon as you’ve marked all latest articles in your feed as read. This gives me a good feeling - what a lovely user experience! I’m happy with the free version as it has a lot to offer already. Wherever I am, on the crosstrainer in the gym, waiting in an airport hall, my iPad with Feedly is my loyal companion. "Feedly, I love you!" PS: Thanks to Oliver Feldkircher from digiPULS who introduced me to Feedly! PPS: This is no paid advertisement. I don’t get paid for this blog article. I purely wrote this article because I find Feedly simply fantastic. 0% advertisement, but 100% enthusiasm. #timemanagement

Have you seen that dark yellow status bar in your Google+ profile? Saying that your Google+ page and other Google+ pages managed by you will be deleted on 2 April 2019? Do you even have a Google+ profile? No? I admit, you have not really missed something. However, if you do have a Google+ profile, then, well … you will for sure not miss it. Your life and online reputation (for some people the same, unfortunately) will not be dismantled - your Google ranking won’t be neither. The official statement reads like this . Google+ will be discontinued from 2 April 2019. My first reaction was: Yessss, one platform less I have to care about. And how do you feel about this information? Experience has shown that a social media tiredness is spreading. I’m not talking about myself alone, but in general. When I talk about social networks with other agencies, entrepreneurs or other people from my private background, I have been hearing more or less the same thing: "It’s okay, but it takes a lot of time which I prefer to invest in other, more useful things." Even young people ("twens") prefer to be on platforms like Snapchat or Instagram, where everything is more fast-paced, picture-heavy and less "rigid" compared to let’s say Facebook for instance. I always found Google+ a bit complicated, thinking about the different circles and groups. I decided to ignore that quite quickly - for time reasons (I’m honest here). The +1’s were nice, but nothing different than a "Like" on Facebook. THE GOOGLE+ PERFORMANCE COMPARED TO FACEBOOK & CO. The thing with social networks is this: It only works well if "everybody" is engaging with it regularly. And if "everybody" is engaging in "every" social platform, you might end up in some kind of social media burnout. "Social media detoxing" is becoming a trend (yes, it is - google it! ). All the likes, shares and so on are becoming more and more inflationary and thus lose value. One question comes up considering the amount of social media platforms: Where do I focus on as a user? On something that offers me additional value. For most businesses it is a big time killer that can indeed pay off in the B2C sector; but in the B2B sector, the extra income does not pay for the extra resources needed. Reason being: a Like or +1 (or however you want to call it) is nice, but does not directly bring you profit. If (!) done well, it can for sure contribute to increase revenue in the middle and long run as the brand and the image are supported. But Google+ hardly played a role in this respect. Every beginning is difficult, sure. But - after several years - not being in the digital homo sapiens’ subjective awareness like where Facebook is (or used to be), might be hard to take for the internet giant Google. WAS GOOGLE+ OF ADVANTAGE TO ME? I’m quite active on social networks - mostly to spread my content , keep my followers and network posted about latest projects and news and to share interesting articles from other people and companies. This works quite well - for my image, my reach and thus for my own brand reputation in the middle and long run. However, after several years of experience, I can say: Google+ has only contributed to a tiny fraction of all of my interactions on my social profiles; with the same amount of effort and postings. Google+ was stagnating from the start and never experienced a positive trend upwards in all those years. Was Google+ of advantage to me? Not really. So I won’t miss Google+ at all. WHICH SOCIAL PLATFORM WORKS BEST FOR ME What works best for me, is Youtube . Every year, it costs me a four-figure amount of money for professional video productions, a lot of time and energy. But it massively contributes to transforming leads into fans. Can Youtube be considered a social network? Rather yes than no, as you can comment, subscribe to channels, click on "thumb up" or "thumb down". The additional value is clear: streaming video material independently from place and time. And you must not forget about another - very important - fact: Youtube belongs to Google and is the second largest search engine on the internet, right after Google. #google #socialmedia

Multi-issue apps contain several catalogues or magazine issues within one app. In such apps, it’s possible to feature an issue by displaying it in a larger size at the top of the app. For two of my clients, it looks like this: The last example shows a login bar at the top of the screen. For this client, I included a login function for existing subscribers of the print magazine. When purchasing a print subscription, the reader is allocated a user name and password which he can use to log in the app to get access to the app magazines - without paying extra for them. Besides that, it’s also possible to buy separate magazine issues from within the app without having to purchase a subscription. As the app developer, I send push notifications (like a whatsapp or SMS) to all mobile devices in the name of my client (the publisher in most cases). This way, I can additionally promote every issue. This works of course for Android, iOS, tablets and phones. The reader swipes once and opens up the equivalent magazine issue. You can find more information on my app magazine service by clicking here . #app #magazine

Austrians have a big problem: they too often lack self-confidence. THE DILEMMA In the German-speaking area, innovation is sometimes not appreciated unless success is following a long time after the innovation happened. Looking back then, the "typical" Austrian is proud of successful people taking risks. Woe, the innovation does not lead to success (which is the risk you take of course) - then Austrians quickly say "we knew it, what a lot of shit." Too often, Austrians don’t appreciate an Austrian export until it’s appreciated abroad. EXAMPLES FROM REAL LIFE Do you remember Conchita Wurst ? No matter how much you like (or don’t like) the artist Conchita. It is a fact that most Austrians sneered at her before winning the Eurovision Song Contest . Austrians needed the title "ESC winner" to realise that Conchita is a great export made in Austria. Many Austrians completely changed their opinion about Conchita from the moment of winning the ESC. Another example is a colleague and friend who works as a coach and speaker. She told me that she would be hired more in Germany than in her home country Austria. "A prophet has no honor in his own country, it’s really funny." (O-tone over a lunch in spring 2017). DOUBLE STANDARD IN THE MEDIA The Tyrolean business magazine "econova" published an issue titled "Progress needs innovation - pleading for more courage" in November 2017. Such a cover is good for the image and gets more readers. However, practice looks a bit different. A completely new and innovative product (Tirol Box), that was praised by local businesses, national and international clients , Austria Marketing and politicians , got quite an odd quarter page in an "econova" in 2016 with a slightly negative comment at the end á la "Let’s see, if that even works." True to the motto "progress needs innovation - but we still don’t really like that". Part of "econova"’s editorial team is friends with people close to Tirol Werbung, an advertising company which is often faced with negative criticism among Tyrolean businesses for good reason. In Novmeber 2016, Tirol Werbung almost copied a press release by Tirol Box published a month before. Another evidence for the double standard of local media when speaking about innovation. It’s sad to see how people and media claim themselves to be innovative and future-orientated whilst lacking the courage and strength to act this way themselves. HOW SELF-CONFIDENCE MAKES PEOPLE SUCCESSFUL Another example from my business shows how important it is to set the course for one’s future early enough: Many years ago, I started to thoroughly deal with the topics "app magazines" and "infographics". Back then, I was one of the very few graphic designers in the German-speaking area even caring about that. There was no real education for these topics then. So I had to invest many weeks to teach myself a lot, asked many detailed questions and investigated in many areas, until my perfectionism told me "yep, now it’s time to go into live mode with app magazines and infographics." Initially, people around me used to say "why are you investing time here, don’t do that". But I staid confident that all the effort will pay off one day. I didn’t allow others to destroy my vision. Now, many years later, I know how important it was to invest so much time and effort and that it was the right decision. Nowadays, app magazines and infographics make up for about 30 % of my annual income. Another example is my former side-job/hobby that I did for about 7 years: until approx. 2010/2011 I used to DJ because I simply loved being creative with music. Back then, a female DJ was an exception and a bit "strange". In my first years as a DJ, I was touring in Austria, in the last years of my DJ career I toured internationally (Brazil, India, Vietnam, Morocco, Tunisia, Turkey, UK, Germany, Switzerland, Italy etc.). Ever since I got appreciated on a more global scale, people in Austria took me more serious and changed their opinion about me as a female DJ from "what does she want here" to "wow, her music is really great, respect". The music genre didn’t change, my style didn’t change, only the audience changed from local to global - and all of a sudden I was "hip" in Austria too. WHY IS THAT? It seems that Austrians need mental confirmation from outside (also by Germans by the way) for us to follow and be brave enough to like something that actually comes from our own country. Maybe this lack of self-confidence has something to do with envy too, as we live in quite an envious society in Germany and Austria. Could it even be that envy is based on a lack of self-confidence? CONCLUSION After many trips abroad (for business and private reasons) and getting to know many people from different countries, I have to say that us Austrians really have a big problem with ourselves. Where is the self-confidence? I don’t miss the self-confidence among innovators, they are confident enough to try something new in an environment with many negative people that often diss you when you don’t follow set paths. I miss the self-confidence among the mainstream. The mainstream of people that should value and praise good business people trying out new things. Without courage and innovation we would still live in caves. In this scenario us Austrians would moan and say "Damn, it’s so f*cking uncomfortable in this cave! It’s time for somebody to invent something more cosy." This blog article does not only portray my own opinion and experiences, by the way. When I speak with people - may it be in a business or private aspect - I often hear the same things and I realise that many Austrians are annoyed by the lacking self-confidence among us. In addition to that, our tax and social insurance politics are sometimes too short-sighted, which makes some good people want to move abroad. Understandably. This is a shame. For the self-confidence of our nation. And it is sad. For the economic output resulting from that. We need a new entrepreneurial culture. Absolutely. #entrepreneurship

Every year entrepreneurs ask themselves what kind of Christmas card they shall send their business partners and clients. So do I. Well, working in the creative industry, I have to admit that I really care about outstanding Christmas cards for my contacts. Tasty goodies alongside the cards have proven to be very well received in the past. A few years ago, I designed a Christmas card with an infographic style cookie recipe and self-baked cookies inside. People simply loved it. This year, I wanted to work with an infographic element again and bring some attention to my new online shop which was launched earlier this year. (As per mid December 2018, the online shop is only available in German language. However, in 2019 the shop will also be made available in English language.) The idea was to split down my working hours into different categories and to visualise them in an easy-to-understand way. (The data source for this graphic was an excel spreadsheet I use every day to track my working hours per client project.) You can see the result here: The design was inspired by „Infografik light“ no. 3 in my online shop. A Lindt chocolate heart can be found inside the card, similar to a piece of Christmas tree decoration. You would like to receive an amazing Christmas card too next year? Let’s talk about your next project and drop me a message . ;-) I’m looking forward to you! #infographic #xmas

As a passionate editorial designer for print and digital, I could collect important experiences in terms of advertisements in digital app magazines in the last years. If you want your advertisements, that you pay a lot of money for, to achieve higher conversion rates, read on. ADAPTIONS FOR MOBILE DEVICES Generally speaking, I recommend to take print advertisements out of your app altogether, unless your advertising clients pay extra for them. Otherwise, your advertising clients won’t have a feeling for the value of your app and will, most likely, never develop one. If you do place digital advertisements, please adapt them in terms of size, mobile device and make them interactive! Don’t hesitate to actively approach your advertising clients and offer them different options and pricing models. This is how a classic print advert looks like on the iPhone - not adapted in size and not interactive (apart from the web link). You can hardly read it and visiting the website doesn’t look very appealing: The advert in the next example was adapted for the sizes of different mobile devices, the text was improved for app readers, it can be perfectly read and there is a clear call to action telling the reader to tap on the red button which automatically opens up the device’s email program. This advert was placed in issue 5/2018 of "Blickpunkt LKW & BUS" and reached a 24 % higher reading rate than all other "static" print adverts in the same issue. You can see more amazing examples for interactions and animations in app advertisements in this video: ARTICLE-BASED APPROACH I’ve already written about the article-based approach in my blog article "The Future of Digital Magazines" . In article-based magazine apps, advertising banners on the starting page are a great thing - you can imagine this to look similar to a blog on a website. Of course, the banner should not look like a classic promo banner, but rather smoothly integrate into the entire page, designed in card design style. This makes the advertisement look more like a piece of actual content. (You can read up more on card design here , by the way.) LARGE OR SMALL ADVERTISEMENT? It’s worth contemplating to skip the classic print advertisement format altogether (1 advertisement = 1 full page between 2 articles). It can definitely make sense to cut down paid content into smaller, more appealing bits of paid content and include them in relevant articles here and there (i.e. with a banner or animated/interactive image). This makes the reader less "blind" for the advertisement. Twixl Media’s Laurent Gerniers from Belgium wrote an excellent article about this interesting topic. CAREFUL WITH "PDF APPS" For the sake of completeness, I have to say that those "fancy" digital adverts are not executable very well in "PDF apps" - due to technical and layout reasons alike. In order to make your adverts really stand out and convert, you definitely need a native, professionally made app magazine. In all those years of creating app magazines, I have seen many examples of unhappy readers of PDF apps which puts a negative light on the magazine and the publishing house. PDF apps cost important download and reading numbers and this is sad to see, as the initial intention was creating additional value for the reader and keeping up with digitization. Poor execution and saving money in the wrong place, makes publishers often pay a high price for it in the end. You can read more about this in my blog article "5 Mistakes that Publishers Stumble Upon with Their App Magazines" . Reader rating of a "PDF app" in the App Store: Reader rating of a native magazine app I created for one of my clients: CONCLUSION Placing advertisements costs a lot of money (in print more than on digital platforms). As the reading flow in print is completely different than on digital, the print layout must be adapted to a digital layout (incl. interactions and subtle animations driving sales). I’m not talking about a website link, but about an advert that actually converts on a digital device. Creating digital adverts is quite cheap, especially when the print design already exists. When spending money for advertisements, don’t save in the wrong place and save the little extra money in creating a stunning digital advert. You don’t buy a Lomborghini and drive around with cheap, adulterated fuel because you don’t have the money for good fuel, right? #app #magazine #advertisement

For me, travelling to different countries is a wonderful source of inspiration and creativity. And everybody who knows me, knows how much I love going abroad to see different countries and cultures. In May/June this year, I went to Colombia - for a three week round trip. Transportation via bus, plane and horse were normal. It was absolutely amazing! Here, I would like to share some lovely holiday moments with you - with a special focus on fonts on Colombian road signs. Looking at it, you might think it's a Starbucks outlet. But it is just a copy... Seen in Medellín/Colombia. Street art in Medellín, Colombia Street art in Comune 13, Medellín, Colombia I love this logo! Great use of negative space. I love the way Colombians write "del" ... D and E are nicely melted together. #typography #font #holiday

If you want to start your own business and thrive for fulfilling your dream becoming your own boss, you might face the fact that you have no or only little budget for a logo, business card and a website in the start-up phase. This is why you maybe put it together yourself somehow. Your little brother, your cousin and your aunty might add their design opinions too. In the end, it’s the business idea that counts, right? That business idea, however, must convince possible clients. The best idea is worth nothing if others don’t understand it or - even worse - are not even interested in taking a look at it thoroughly enough (in case the company looks too unprofessional for instance). This is what happens over and over again in real business life, unfortunately - a big part plays a poor branding. If you are in the position to invest some money into your logo etc. in order to make your business look serious and professional, you will look for an advertising agency or a designer. But there are probably hundreds of thousands of designers out there. Here you can find out what you really have to look at when you are looking for a designer. WHAT DOES A LOGO COST? Sometimes a low price is the winning criteria for a certain designer or agency. But how much does the corporate design from a "cheap designer" cost? Prices vary from 1000 to 2500 Euros net, I would say. But what adds up afterwards, shows a real life example of a real estate agency. This real estate agent hired an advertising agency to create a logo, business card and website for 2500 Euros net. So far, so good. A few weeks after going live, the client received a letter from a lawyer. Copyright infringement! The real estate agent’s logo looked way too similar to another existing real estate agent’s logo. In order to turn away a possible copyright lawsuit threatening the real estate agent’s existence, the lawyer asked for a payment of 800 Euros. Getting a new logo was recommended, too. WHEN THE CLIENT IS THE F*CKED ONE IN THE END Of course, you can now argue about the lawyer’s integrity if a payment of only 800 Euros is sufficient compared to a much higher copyright lawsuit. However, the core of the problem lies in the copying of existing logos or using existing logo snippets, which are then sold on as a "new logo" even though it’s not a new logo. This means betraying the client just in order to offer low prices. The real estate agency’s CEO was very angry, understandably, and asked the advertising agency to pay the 800 Euro fine, as it was the advertising agency’s mistake. They refused to pay the fine. I would not be surprised if there were cooperations between dumping price designers and lawyers like this out there in order to earn easy cash. Similar scenarios are known from other business areas. This is poison for the design industry, bad for its image and most of all terrible for the clients that are the f*cked ones in the end. However, everybody hiring a designer or an advertising agency should think about why some designers are "so cheap" whilst others are "so expensive". As you can see in the example above, low price designers can cost more than expected in the end. #copyright #logo

Print or digital publications - or both? Future-proof publishers have answered this question for themselves already. Magazine- or article-based digital magazine? This is the crucial question at the moment. THE STATUS QUO Publishing houses still find it hard to believe that print alone is not everything (any more). Some of them have been experiencing big financial losses in terms of subscription payments and advertising income over the past years. I’m speaking of billions of Euros in the entire industry. However, it would be wrong to say that print will not continue to exist. I believe that print magazines will still be successful as long as they are accompanied and thus supported by attractive digital offers that go along with their print counterparts at the same time. Since Adobe shocked publishers and editorial designers worldwide a few years ago by more or less spontaneously introducing their license model for the Digital Publishing Suite and basically blackmailing their clients taking advantage of their leading market position, I switched towards the Belgian software solution Twixl for creating digital app magazines and app brochures for my clients. STRUCTURE OF AN APP Ever since internet blogs have become more and more successful, one question pops up in the media landscape: How shall an app magazine be structured?: I Classic magazine format: several topics and articles in one compact medium or I article-based: many loose articles that stand for themselves, maybe wrapped up in categories (similar to a blog on a website) Thinking of the classic magazine format; when you tap the app icon, you’ll get to a selection of different magazine issues that you can download (either by paying money as an in-app-purchase of free of charge). This is often the simplest way to offer an existing print magazine as a digital app magazine, because the editorial team doesn’t have much more work with it. Opposed to that, there is the article-based approach which requires the editorial team to shift their thinking more towards a blog approach. Imagine the magazine app icon on your mobile device again. You tap it and a bunch of loose articles pops up in front of your eyes - preferably in a card design layout (read more about card designs in this blog post ). This bunch of loose articles is often summed up in categories, so called "collections" in the language of Twixl. This article-based approach widely represents the usability of websites or web blogs. You try to make the app user feel they are consuming an internet blog. This makes sense as the reading flow of print magazine differs a lot from the reading flow of a digital medium. ARTICLE-BASED PUBLISHING As you can see in the example picture above, there are different types of content that can be fed into each box: articles created as HTML or in Indesign, a link to a website, a photo (static or gif-animated) as a promotional banner, a video or a chapter overview page. In addition to that, the grid is very flexible, works both in portrait and landscape format on tablets and smart phones and can be adapted very nicely to the look and feel of your company - in terms of fonts and colours alike. This design freedom and flexibility combined with the big amount of content possibilities, makes article-based publishing very attractive and future-proof for publishers to monetize their magazines beyond any geographic borders. APP VS. WEBSITE You might ask yourself: Why have an app, when you can offer your content on a website too? The big advantage is the customer retention. With a website, the reader has to become active and visit the website. Of course you can remind your readers to do so by e-mailing them newsletters. However, thinking of low open rates that are often way under 20 % and the GDPR in Europe that has been in effect since 25 May 2018, this is not the best form of customer retention any more, I have to say. Having your app icon on your readers’ tablet and smart phone screens, makes them see the publisher’s/magazine’s logo every time they hold their mobile device in their hands. This is simply great. But that’s not all. The very best advantage of an app is the possibility to send out push notifications to the mobile devices the app is installed on; some sort of SMS from the publisher/magazine to the reader saying something like "What’s behind XYZ? Read the full story now in our app". A simple swipe on the device, and the reader is in the story already. There is probably no better promotion for your content. Besides that, the user does not loose himself in the World Wide Web like on a typical website - just take a look at your Google Analytics data to see how little time users stay on a website nowadays. GET YOUR OWN APP You want to save printing and postage costs and offer your magazine, sales brochure or annual report in app stores? Then I’m looking forward to your email . #app #digitalpublishing

I assume you have heard the word "podcast" already, right? A podcast is a kind of mini radio show or mini audio book. Instead of reading something, somebody reads it out for you. Podcasts can be free or fee-based and you find them on the internet where you can stream them. Another option is to download podcasts so that you can listen to them on the go. Podcasts are becoming more and more popular worldwide. This trend can also be utilised for app magazines. In this blog article, I show you 5 ideas of using audio files in app magazines: TIP # 1 Almost all magazines come with an editorial letter or a foreword by the editor in chief. In addition to the text as such, this foreword can also be read out by an mp3 file. The editor in chief’s words read out by him-/herself in person gives the magazine a more personal touch and establishes a special connection to the reader. TIP # 2 Interviews can be embedded as an audio file into the app too – in addition to the written text. This comes in handy as interviews are often recorded anyway in order to type them later on. So why not place the mp3 file into the app? TIP # 3 If you publish manuals or tutorials in your app magazine, you could read them out with an audio file too. Here it’s important not to forget a pause function, though. TIP # 4 Screen-filling photo stories look better and, most of all, more authentic when they are accompanied by supporting noises. A photo slideshow with woods and treeds seems more natural when it’s supported by bird tweeting. Or a photo gallery with cars, traffic and traffic jams comes across more authentic with the typical sound of traffic jams at rush hour. Picture and sound in harmony – this makes the reader fully grasp the topic. A good source for such sounds, that I like to use, is freesound.org for example. TIP # 5 When covering event topics, background music can be a nice thing to have. However, consider any copyright infringements and make sure to get all legal right necessary to include the audio file into your app magazine. You might want to send an e-mail to the record label or the artist’s management for permission. Some artists are also happy with you putting an iTunes link into your app for you using their song. By the way: Another advantage of embedding audio files into an app magazine is the small file size of mp3 files, especially compared to video files. Sound files don’t unnecessarily increase your app’s file size on your readers’ mobile devices. THIS IS HOW YOU CAN EASILY PRODUCE YOUR OWN AUDIO FILES You might have the best recording equipment already in your pocket or on your desk: your iPhone. You will be surprised of the iPhone’s audio quality! Even video crews often use iPhones to record sound. For my own podcast , I record audio files with the built-in voice memo app of the iPhone and e-mail the mp3 file to myself afterwards. This audio file is already ready-to-use. If I like, I could also use an audio software (i.e. Audacity ) to edit and cut the mp3 file accordingly. I wish you a lot of fun recording your audio files! For further questions on app magazines, simply send me an e-mail to office@hcg-corporate-designs.com . #podcast #audio #app

A few weeks ago, I stumbled upon an app magazine called "Sister Mag". Besides the app for iOS, Google Play and Amazon, there is a large blog as well as download and multimedia topics on the website, plus an ISSUU-PDF on the website . I feel that sisterMAG is a very beautifully made women’s magazine with a lot of love for detail about lifestyle, fashion and many other things that make life more fun. Normally, I don’t get lost in women’s magazines as I often lack the time and passion for them – or they are simply all the same. However, sisterMAG really felt different and I put my nose into it for quite a while. "What a great magazine", I thought by myself, "and they even have an app!". The ladies behind sisterMAG really fully understood sustainable publishing that is fit for the future – and executed it well. As an app magazine designer myself, my heart was smiling. And this is why I wrote this blog article about sisterMAG. I took a closer look at issues number 34 (February 2018) and number 12 (April 2014). Considering the editorial design, you can without a doubt tell the editor in chief’s design expertise. Technically, the app was implemented by PressMatrix GmbH in Berlin. The starting screen of the app shows the cover pages of all magazine issues (German and English language). Having several languages within the same app can make things complicated and unfortunately do so in this app, it’s a bit hard to find the issue you want to read. Readers might want to read either the English or the German issue. Two separate apps (one for English and one for German) would have been better here and in the readers’ interest. INTERACTIVE FEATURES What attracted my attention was the fact that sisterMAG doesn’t offer animations, photo slide shows or other "special effect" interactions in the app. The app predominantly works with links to the website. This can make sense here since the website offers a lot of continuative content that links to the relevant topics (an example is dress patterns as PDF downloads on the website as a link from the photos showing the perfectly sewed dresses in the app magazine). Hence: perfect cross-marketing across several channels! In issue number 12 from April 2014, published quite a while ago, I discovered embedded video and audio content. But that was it in terms of multimedia content within the app. Video and audio files seem to be hardly ever used. For sisterMAG, links to the website seem sufficient and financially easily doable. The more complex animations, special effects and other interactions you offer in an app, the more its production costs of course. What I like: All links are visually emphasised so that you instantly see where more content is offered. Very nice! Moreover, the links open in an In-App-Browser. This means that the reader cannot get lost in the world wide web as the browser address line is not displayed. When you want to exit the website, you simply tap on "done" and the In-App-Browser closes, leaving you at the same position in the app where you left it in order to go into the internet. The magazine can be read in both formats on the tablet (portrait and landscape). However, there is a similar problem like shifting print PDFs into a app: It only makes real sense to read the magazine in landscape format, especially when you think of stories that are designed across double pages. TYPOGRAPHY The font size is perfect for a digital reading flow on tablets. When you look at other magazines that shift their print PDF files into the app, you’ll find out that you will be forced to manually zoom in and out on every (!) text column in order to be able to read the app magazine, which is extremely frustrating, as you can imagine. SisterMAG does it well, very good! A source of irritation however are very narrow text columns which can hurt your eye when looking at the text for a little while. Three to five words per line are definitely too little, it should be at least seven to eight words per line for a digital medium, in my opinion. Ordinary book typography demands for an ideal line width of eight to twelve words per line to make it a pleasure for the human eye (see typography expert Wolfgang Beinert). A one column text layout would have been better than a two column text layout here, as a lot of negative space or white space is used anyway. TECHNICAL CHALLENGES The app seems to have limitations in terms of file downloads like PDFs in the In-App-Browser. There was a lovely photo gallery with self-sewed dresses of which patterns were offered as a PDF download. The PDF downloads were linked in the app. The link opened the website in the In-App-Browser and led to the PDF download. However, the PDF was stuck on the first page. It was impossible to scroll further down to see the patterns – this problem occured with all four dress patterns. However, opening the links in the Safari browser on my iPad, there were no problems with PDF downloads, I could scroll down to the end of each PDF file. Also when opening the PDFs on the desktop computer, everything was fine. The app’s In-App-Browser caused the problem. Opening the PDF download outside the app in the Safari browser would have been a good workaround – even though that means readers leave the app. SMARTPHONE COMBATIBILITY You can consume the sisterMAG app also on your smartphone – technically and in theory. However, the readability is not good on the phone. The text size is so small that reading becomes an annoying challenge. The layout of the tablet version is the same as in the smartphone version which of course makes the magazine production easier but the reader has to pay the price for that. A new, smartphone-friendly, layout with bigger font size for smartphones and a one-column layout for the text would have been the better solution. You can find out more information about this specific topic in this video : SisterMAG a very beautiful magazine and fun to read – even though not on your smartphone. But I think, many other special interest magazines can really take a leaf out of sisterMAG’s book. #app #typography #font