blinkplan blog

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

The Blinkplan Blog is now launched. Not to a huge fanfare - more or less just to a click of the “Publish” button - but nevertheless - it’s launched.

Now what - you may ask - does this all mean? Well, it means that here Kerry and I will let you know about product updates, news, and tips & tricks. You are welcome to comment on any of our posts. We like meeting our customers.

And if you are wondering what Blinkplan is, then let me tell you: Blinkplan is the easiest way to create pagination - or flatplans - for magazines. Or in other words, flatplan software. It’s real cheap, it’s real easy to use, and we love it. Especially the PDFs it creates - that’s my favourite part.

Anyway. Be sure to subscribe to our feed to keep up to date.

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