blinkplan blog

From Print Media Management:

Blinkplan, an online flatplan system, has been launched,which saves time and helps prevent potentially costly pagination mistakes at print stage

Blinkplan, an online flatplan system, has been launched,which saves time and helps prevent potentially costly pagination mistakes at print stage, the company says.
Implemented through a web browser, Blinkplan’s online flatplan system automatically reflows pages when a spread is relocated, removing the need to manually shift spreads and rename them, and displays a running subtotal of how many adverts and editorial pages.

The system calculates ideal locations for bind-ins and checks content-filled pages against print section sizes to make sure they match up. It also generates a PDF to easily email or print the flatplan, allowing colleagues to view. Payment is calculated according to the number of flatplans required.

We have setup a feedback page for Blinkplan at http://feedback.blinkplan.com. Please head on over there and tell us about all your feature requests, or vote for feature requests that are already there. This will help us a lot trying to figure out what all you eager beavers want from Blinkplan that isn’t already there.

We’ve also added a feedback tab right into the application itself. We love simplicity.

Blinkplan is a cool new web application on which to create flatplans for magazines and booklets. It’s easy, intuitive, fast and inexpensive, and fulfils a long-standing need in the industry.

Blinkplan was launched on 15 September 2008 by leading South African web-application designer Joerg Diekmann and South African magazine professional Kerry Rogers. Since then,

Blinkplan has seen an enormous response, with signups throughout South Africa, Europe and Asia. It’s had a great deal of positive feedback, most along the following lines:

“You’ve certainly nailed a basic industry need that was surprisingly hard to find on the web. Building these things in Excel or Word is not impossible, but not nearly as simple as you make it.”

Since its launch two weeks ago, Blinkplan’s fast, inexpensive flatplan program has seen an enormous response, with signups throughout South Africa, Europe and Asia. It’s had a great deal of positive feedback, most along the following lines:

“You’ve certainly nailed a basic industry need that was surprisingly hard to find on the web. Building these things in Excel or Word is not impossible, but not nearly as simple as you make it.”

Here is a summary of Blinkplan’s main features:

Easy, flexible payment options

Blinkplan subscriptions vary in price from $15 to $69 per month. There are no contracts – Blinkplan is run month to month. You can cancel or change your pricing plan any time.

Privacy

Your flatplans are 100% confidential as Blinkplan uses SSL security – the same encryption system that banks use.

Security

Stored on Blinkplan’s server, your flatplans are safer than if they were on your office file server or your hard drive. Our servers are backed up daily and weekly and are protected against crashes by means of storage at more than one location.

Page categories

You can name and colour-code up to 30 different page categories – for example, ‘ad’, ‘editorial’, ‘promotion’, etc. These page categories can also be used for basic production tracking in that you can create colour codes for, for example, ‘sent to print’ or ‘text not in yet’.

Automatic totalling

At all times, Blinkplan displays how many pages of each category you have, as well as a grand total.

Automatic re-flowing

When you move a spread, the affected spreads re-flow automatically.

Fractional-ad accommodation

Blinkplan has a number of templates that allow you to split your page into, for example, quarter blocks, halves or strips. These fractions are accurately and automatically totalled.

Spanning

If you’re flatplanning a long story, for example a fashion shoot, Blinkplan allows you to repeat one page up to ten times. You fill in the info once, tell Blinkplan how many times to span it, and it does the rest.

Section management

Type in your section sizes and Blinkplan will show you whether you have too few or too many pages. Change your sections and you won’t lose any content – Blinkplan will simply show you whether or not your content fits.

Stitch-in calculation

Blinkplan automatically calculates all possible locations for stitch-ins or bind-ins. Once you’ve chosen your position, it adds a graphic clearly illustrating (for printers, repro houses etc) where the stitch-ins should go.

Notes

A field for notes allows you to type messages about your flatplan for your team or factory.

PDF generation

In one mouse-click, Blinkplan can generate a print-friendly, e-mail friendly PDF of your flatplan. You can store this on your computer and send it out to your colleagues. There is also an option to e-mail flatplans out directly from your Blinkplan web page.

For more information, visit http://www.blinkplan.com.

For regular updates, check out our blog: http://blog.blinkplan.com.

Kerry Rogers has eight years’ experience in consumer and contract magazines in South Africa, involved in both editorial and production. She is now a freelance production consultant, writer, editor and subeditor.

Most recently, she was managing editor at Cosmopolitan South Africa for four years. Prior to that, she was assistant editor of Top Billing magazine and chief copy editor of Marie Claire South Africa. She has also worked on GQ South Africa and Style, and at Picasso Headline, which at the time published about 20 custom titles.

Kerry has spent much of her publishing career improving efficiency and quality within teams and processes. In between that, she has written extensively for many titles, had her first book published, and interviewed some crazy celebrities (including her childhood crush Patrick Swayze). She has battled with unsuitable software for creating flatplans for many years, which is why it made sense to her to get involved in Blinkplan. 

Kerry has a BA in with distinctions in majors English and philosophy, as well as a first-class BMus Honours in dance musicology, both attained at the University of Cape Town. She lives in Cape Town with her husband and young son and spends more time than necessary writing on her tiny computer.

Kerry Rogers

Joerg Diekmann is one of the leading web-application developers in South Africa. His take is that just like writers, art exhibitions and even a DJ’s playlist need editing, so too does software. Less is more.

Joerg holds a computer science and economic science degree from the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa. He lived in London for five years where he developed an interest in art and design, which led him to create the leading online art photography magazine at the time called AK47.tv. There he also worked on major sports websites for Manchester United, The Rugby World Cup, and America’s Cup. Before returning to South Africa, he worked at the Lawn Tennis Association which allowed him to play tennis every day on the finest courts in England, and make the contacts to co-write the Tennis Tournament Manager software used at all ATP/WTA tournaments around the world.

Since then he has concentrated on writing easy-to-use subscription-based software in his spare time for freelancers and smaller businesses, starting with the popular invoicing software called Fluttervoice. During the day, his freelance work has allowed him to write a video sharing site for 8mm footage, and a pension fund administration system.

Joerg also DJs alt.country and country music, does off-road motorbike touring, tries to eat healthily and is fanatical about film.

Joerg Diekmann

REVOLUTIONARY FLATPLAN SOFTWARE PACKAGE DEVELOPED BY SMALL SOUTH AFRICAN BUSINESS

A magazine flatplan is like one of those little puzzles with eight squares that, when arranged correctly in their plastic frame, form a picture. It takes a lot of shuffling to get one right. And like the puzzle, a flatplan usually involves a lot of re-doing, time-wasting and hair-pulling.

Once you think you have the correct number of pages, you need to count the ads to make sure you haven’t missed one, and you can count on someone interrupting you just as you reach the end, causing you to have to start again.

And just when you’ve established that you have the correct number of ads, editorial pages, advertorials, etc, chances are you’ll realise that the DPS on page 100 would be better off on page 10. Then begins the process of manually shifting 45 DPSs along one slot in order to relocate the spread.

In the meantime, an impatient team is asking you, ‘What’s taking so long? It’s just a bunch of blocks!’

What are the options for creating a flatplan?

Spreadsheets

A spreadsheet makes a nice neat flatplan with a small file size. It can be sent out to sales and creative teams alike because most people are able to open spreadsheets. On the down side, it takes a lot of time to format and re-flowing has to be done manually.

Design packages

Using a design package to create a flatplan allows a fair amount of visual flexibility, but the files are huge. PDFs are fairly easily generated but the plans are only modifiable by someone with the software – and the hardware to support the software. Manual re-flowing and totalling make this a time-consuming method.

All-inclusive systems

Some design-and-production systems (often costing in the hundreds of thousands) include a pagination package. This is only viable if you need the full package. In the tight, competitive SA market, most SA publishers prefer to put their resources into quality.

Now there’s a fourth option: Web expert Joerg Diekmann and magazine pro Kerry Rogers have spent just over a year developing Blinkplan, a secure online package that speeds up the flatplan-design process significantly. It’s cost effective and simple, and among other things, it:

-       reflows affected spreads automatically when a spread is relocated

-       automatically displays a running subtotal of how many ads, editorial pages, advertorials (up to 20 self-defined categories) there are

-       automatically calculates stitch-in locations

-       has a safe backup system, works on pretty much any machine with a modern web browser, and generates PDFs for easy viewing and printing

In this economic climate, when budget constraints mean many magazine employees are carrying the workload of more than one staff member each, no employer can afford to pay someone to sit for hours counting little blocks on a page. The Blinkplan system saves a lot of time and helps prevent potentially costly pagination mistakes at print stage. It is also inexpensive and can be run on PC or Mac with a modern web browser.

Blinkplan’s originators

Joerg Diekmann: A ninja software designer with over twelve years experience in building web applications

Kerry Rogers: A former managing editor (and flatplan-maker) of one of SA’s top-selling magazines, with eight years’ editorial and production experience in the consumer and custom magazine-publishing industries.

For more info, visit www.blinkplan.com