Blinkplan | Blog

From Folio:

Blinkplan expedites production map design and management processes, creators say

By Vanessa Voltolina

A pair of magazine and software design professionals are targeting magazine publishers with their new program, Blinkplan, which they say offers the most convenient way to draw up flatplans—the diagram, or map, that shows where articles and advertisements are laid out.

Launched this fall, Blinkplan was created by South Africa-based software designer Joerg Diekmann and former magazine managing editor Kerry Rogers. The system, which is accessed at the Blinkplan web site, automatically gives a running subtotal of how many ads, editorial pages, advertorials are in a given issue. The system can create PDFs and re-flows pages when a spread is moved. Up to three maps can be worked on at the same time.

Diekmann and Rogers spent about a year-and-a-half in testing phases before working with their first magazine client: the South African edition of Cosmopolitan. “They used it for about six months until the product evolved into what it is now,” Diekmann wrote in an e-mail FOLIO:.

After working with the magazine, Diekmann and Rogers discovered that Blinkplan’s process reduces the time to produce a map (using conventional spreadsheet, design package and all-inclusive systems) by half. “We definitely want to get more glossies on board like Cosmopolitan, but we think Blinkplan is also right for smaller trade magazines, contract magazines, and other business-to-business type magazines,” Diekmann wrote. “There are so many magazines that cannot afford bigger, and more fully featured systems.”

A monthly subscription to the Blinkplan system costs $29 per month. Weekly magazines can opt for a package deal ($55 per month) that stores 12 maps at a time, the company says.

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.

From BizCommunity:

click to enlarge

click to enlarge

The brains behind the program are Joerg Diekmann, a ninja software designer with over 12 years’ experience in building web applications and 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 consumer and custom magazines.

Says Rogers, “As far as we can tell, there is nothing else like it on the market - most other options either expensive or not tailored to magazines. Blinkplan is a 100% South African product. A year and a half of tech expertise has gone into it, and it has been extensively tested on a major SA consumer title.”

Little puzzle with eight squares

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. Normally there are three ways of generating a flatplan: spreadsheets, design packages and all-inclusive systems.

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!’

Blinkplan is a secure online package that is supposed to be 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 30 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
• makes sure that the number of content pages corresponds with the defined print sections