It takes a lot of work, dedication, and many long hours to successfully run a periodical of any kind, printed or online. The work is even harder when the effort is not backed by major amounts of cash that can buy things like people who can help shorten the work load (assuming you're not hiring mouth breathers) and put out a better product.
That's why independent publications like A List Apart, The Morning News, and FILE Magazine are so special, unique, and well worth the patronage.
Add the physical layer of print to this mix and the workload increases — anyone who has ever had to use Quark Xpress will have a story or two that is best shared over a stiff drink and a hug. I myself can't stand Quark and think it's a pile of crap that snake-oil salesmen somehow convinced the world is a great desktop publishing application. Indesign where it's at.
I digress.
Dealing with print is just as difficult as having to deal with cross-platform browser web standards, if not more. Add to that the stress of managing writers, editors, etc. and it gets tough. Just ask the Powazek's what it's like creating JPG magazine — I'm sure it's very rewarding but I can assure you it's no spring picnic.
Sadly the harsh winter cold of print design has taken it's toll. Editor and publisher Andy Arikawa has decided to close up shop at Design In-Flight, a design publication that was superior to many found in stores.
I'm sorry to see DIF go but I understand and wish Andy the very best.
Thankfully back issues are still available. If you don't have them already, quit reading Airbag, grab your credit card and go.
update: Andy has had a change of heart and Design In-Flight is back with a new website and format.
Join the fray by reading through and commenting at the end.
Well, that's a hell of a shame. It sure was good while it lasted...
Silly question on my part, but what happens to those who subscribed for a year? I only ask now because I am sure it will be asked anyways. I can live without the $10.
Scrivs, you should have gotten an e-mail notifying you of a refund. I did.
Refund?! What a crock, Andy can keep my money. The issues I have are well worth the small fee.
To be fair, Quark 3.3 wasn't that bad considering what was around at the time. I can't think of any serious competition to the product for pretty much all of the 90s. It's just a shame Quark thought 1993 was the year to stop doing anything useful with the product.
It's a shame that Design In-Flight won't be there anymore. It was really well worth the money. I have never ever put my hands on such a beautiful magazine. It was one of these rare opportunities to find such professional knowledge bundled in one file here in germany.
Aww, dang it. This is sad news...I really enjoyed DIF...
No way?!? The only sensible web-design mag around - printed or online (at least here in old europe) - is closing? Every fourtnight, when i get my geeky german tec-mag and find the next article stating "hey! there is something called CSS, it's quite cool" I crave the next issue of DIF!
DIF is dead! Long live DIF!
Isn't there something that can be done? Any enterprising designers out there that can purchase the publication and keep it going?
Hey, just curious I was listining to iTunes today and realized Radiohead has a song called "Airbag" is this where you got the idea for your site name?
Caleb, there is a reason why I bothered creating an About page, namely to provide answers to questions like yours.
I wasn't aware there was a song titled Airbag, there goes the soundtrack idea.
That is too bad about DIF.
Quark is trash.
InDesign rocks.
I also thought you named this place in some semblance of the Radio Head song. Go figure.
I'm truly sad to hear this and I just wrote to Andy asking him if he was okay before seeing this post. I'd be happy to help keep it running. Andy, just ask.
Ya. Design in Flight comes to a close. What a massive drag.
Call to Arms
If it's a question of money I'll kick in $100.00 if 99 other people will. It would be worth another year. "independent publications are so special, unique, and well worth the patronage" indeed. We can't let this fall by the wayside if it's a question of cash. If it's a question of people resources maybe others would be interested in lending time, talent and a hand.
Greg, care to take charge of a poll?
Can anyone get to the website anymore? Every time I try Safari just downloads a file.
Same here since last post.
Oh, I agree with Greg in saying I don't need a refund or even want one. I was more asking from a business curiousity standpoint. And it seems something is wrong with his hosts because even his personal site is down.
Still no site access. I really wanted to get the back issues :(
The marketplace has spoken, publishing is an ugly game. As much as I tried to like it, I didn't find much of value in DIF. It seemed insubstancial, caught in the no man's land between free web content and something you'd actually feel good about paying $8 an issue for. No web-based eMag has been successful; perhaps it's just a product that isn't a great customer experience --- yet.
Everyone,
Thanks for your support and kind words.
The website is having problems due to the host, I'm in contact with them to resolve the issue. Hopefully that will be back up and running soon so that back issues will be available.
To clarify, refunds were only sent to those who had pre-ordered the July 05 - April 06 issues.
Also, while this is probably not the best forum for this, I will say that I am entertaining the idea of transferring the DIF entity to interested parties. If that's you, contact me. (Email's working)
I plan to post some backstory on my decision on my personal site (once my host is situated). But it is not (and never was) about renumeration. More about the time factor, and the pressure to put out a quality product time and again.
Tom, It's great of you to show support for someone who launched a magazine but then had to quit for personal (not monetary) reasons.
Really sad to see this happen.
Tom: having looked at a bunch of print mags about design (both print and web), I've found that most of them are insubstantial rubbish. DiF focused on readable content, cutting out the bullshit, and I found it both refreshing and informative.
Sorry, nothing in your original post said anything about why it was going, just that it was gone. I didn't know anything about the story, but I'd wager if AA was making a huge profit he'd find the time to keep it going. I give everyone who tries to get off their ass and do anything all the moral support I can; God knows too many folks sit around and do diddley.
My critique was solely about my opinion on the product, which was that it wasn't really worth paying for (please don't take this as me stating the inverse, as Ben does, that I'm saying other bits of 'rubbish' are more worthwhile. I'm not).
Design 'magazines' online and off seem to be increasingly not very interesting. With so much information available free courtesy of Google content that costs money has got to be uncommonly compelling to support any realistic business model. That's all I'm saying.
PDF is a funny medium. People will spend hours reading all sorts of rubbish in blogs but even the best quality PDF usually languishes unread on the desktop for months after it's downloaded. It requires more of a commitment of time, it seems. Couple that with a subscription model... well, people just don't bother. So you end up putting in all that hard work for a handful of readers, mainly your contributors straying for a while after checking for typos in their own article. I don't suppose anyone is any different to me, I judge everyone by my own standards.
DIF will go down as another great magazine that hardly anyone read. If money doesn't matter, Andy, probably best just to shove them up free on the web and let people download them to their desktops where they will remain unread but at least in close reach should the urge overcome someone to fire up Acrobat one drizzly night.
I'm fairly cynical about all the voices of praise and the feigned tears. I suspect many (of the few) skimmed the magazine for a few seconds, long enough to have a strong opinion. Having an opinion is the important thing these days, about what doesn't matter.
Joel,
On what, exactly, do you base your analysis? Just when to personal issue equate to a failed business model?
I base my analysis on experience, Tony.
Experience with what, Joel. It seems you are assuming quite a lot about this particular situation. If you have inside knowledge, by all means state as much. But, everytime a one-man shop closes down, do you go around blaming the business model? Did joshuaink.com close its doors because blogs just don't work?
Tony -- experience in bringing out PDF magazines, experience of writing for them, experience of them closing down. I am not assuming anything about this situation and do not believe I have said anything controversial. Anyone with any experience in PDF publishing knows it's a hard slog for little return. People should support a magazine when it's getting going. But they don't, instead they cry about its demise after mostly ignoring it. As Andy says, it's a time issue, he doesn't have enough time... but as someone said, quite rightly I think, he would have had time had it been profitable, which boils down to sufficient people being interested. Myself I stopped a free PDF magazine I was doing not because it wasn't widely distributed but because I didn't think the readers were intelligent enough to warrant me putting the hours in any more. We all have this judgment call to make. Andy will have his reasons, which he says he's going to explain. This is just my view on it.
Well, it's clear that you think you are better than you readers, so it's no surprise you didn't want to continue publishing. However, I'm not sure your experience amounts to a typical case. There are many, many PDF publications out there -- did you know that the Washington Post offers a subscription-based PDF version of its daily paper? There are also other smaller PDF publications.
I'm not looking to get into an argument here, but I just thought you made some pretty bold and sweeping statements with nothing to back them up.
Tony -- Are bold and sweeping statements banned around here? Are generalisations always worthless? Merely suggesting I am wrong in my views seems to me similarly a bold and sweeping statement, and I wouldn't say the example of the Washington Post is much to back it up with. One would hope that one of the foremost newspapers of record on the planet might enjoy a little success.
Ok, you make broad generalizations and that's ok. I say, "hold on a minute, what's your basis for these claims" and you say that is somehow unreasonable. Do I have that right?
Your point wast that PDFs don't work because they are too much work and no one reads them. Oh, and the readers are pretty much worthless, I can't forget that point. And, charging for PDFs double-plus doesn't work. And, more to the point, those are the reasons for the demise of Design in Flight.
Do I have your argument in a nutshell?
Ok, now here is mine: back it up. Show me something that supports your point. And don't do it in a way that assumes I have no experience with the subject. Don't talk down to me and think I'll take you as an authority because of your tone.
If you want to postulate as to why DiF failed, you are obviously free to do so (and if you weren't, it's not even my place to determine that). However, if you want me to take your view seriously (which, of course, you may not), you are going to have to do better than "because I said so."
The logic you have presented here so far is circular: PDF subscriptions don't work, which is why DiF failed, which proves PDF subscriptions don't work.
Tony, I'd say there's simply a paucity of examples for subscriber-supported PDF content that has worked. For argument's sake, name one that has (PDF versions of real-world publications don't count). For all the hoopla about digital publishing the reality is an eBook still sucks versus a real book and an eMag sucks versus a real mag (most of the time). Most people, even designers and geeks still prefer dead trees and ink. The commercial success of print magazines (which is also a rare occurance -- the oft-told nugget is 9 out of every 10 magazines fail) has a lot to do with the well-executed integration of advertising. Indeed, in many very successful magazines (Vogue, Brides, etc) the ads are as much of a reason to buy the publication as the editorial. Vanity mags are simply that ... more art project than publication. It's cool that people do them. It's not a shock or a tragedy when they go away, the next ambitious kid with too much spare time is around the corner waiting to start another.
That's a shame. DIF was a good publication.
I always wanted to interview Andy for the Magazine Weblog about how he was making a PDF-only periodical work, but his schedule and mine never synched up.
As far as PDF subscriptions not working... I disagree. It depends on the team behind it. InDesign Magazine does quite well a year into its PDF-only circ., but InDesign Magazine has a full staff, including sales personnel. Andy was trying to do everything himself, and it's just too much work for one person.
I'd also wager that InDesign Magazine doesn't have the mandate to be a stand-alone profit center, it's essentially marketing and support for InDesign the product, supported by a certain large software company. Can anyone name a single, successful, stand-alone not-free eMag pub?
"I'd also wager that InDesign Magazine doesn't have the mandate to be a stand-alone profit center, it's essentially marketing and support for InDesign the product, supported by a certain large software company."
And you'd be wrong in your assumption.
Hah, okay you're right, although I'd say it's still arguable that InDesign Magazine obviously benefits (however indirectly) from the marketing and product sales efforts of Adobe. Funny, by googling them (it's a publication from CreativePro.com). I've discovered that a friend of mine is one of the editors. I'll see if I can get some info from her about how it's doing financially and how many subscribers they actually have. Perhaps one of the pluses of eMag publishing is while it might not make money at least it might not lose money as rapidly as a print publication with all those monthly printing and delivery costs. Perhaps it's viable at a much smaller scale than a print-based production, but the effort isn't any less.
"Hah, okay you're right, although I'd say it's still arguable that InDesign Magazine obviously benefits (however indirectly) from the marketing and product sales efforts of Adobe."
No doubt.
"...but the effort isn't any less."
You can say that again.
To avoid wasting anymore of Greg's bandwidth of the topic, those interested in reading the backstory and continuing the discussion can go here:
http://www.modulo26.net/archives/2005/07/difs_final_flight.html