After getting serious about BJD’s, I’ve been looking around at magazines and books as well. Unfortunately many of the magazines are expensive and hard to get hold of. Thats why I was thrilled with hearing about My Muse Magazine!
They offer to purchase digital version of the magazine, and at a very reasonable price. I bought both issues, and waited for them to pop into my e-mail inbox! I was a bit disappointed that purchasing didn’t take me to a download page, or at least automatic sending to e-mail upon paying, waiting for a real life person to see that I have paid and then send them to me is a bit annoying, but I never was a patient person so that might not be a big issue for everyone 😉
Here is my biggest problem with the magazine.. It’s not a PDF file.. I get a zipped folder, unzip it and inside is a HTML document (and a folder), and upon opening I get this fancy flash flipping book, which would have been well enough, but the image is TINY on my screen. Of course there is a zoom button, but that button only zooms the page inside the tiny window, so I have to drag my mouse around to see. Here is a photo of what I’m talking about:
This makes it hard to really enjoy the stunning photos in the book.
Also, the links provided in the book aren’t clickable. When using flash, there is no problem adding links to a file, you can even do this in PDF documents, and you can’t mark any text to copy and paste either, I’m not very impressed with that.
Next issue… You can’t PRINT! Well, you sort of can, but the print will include the lovely gray frame with the arrows and stuff on it, and only show the part that you have showing in the window.This is especially an issue when they provide patterns. In the second issue, they have provided a pattern for Dal dolls, and of course I can take a screen shot of the pattern pieces, but they haven’t provided a “this square should be 1 inch tall and wide” thing or “this line should measure soso much” or anything, so how am I supposed to know that I’m printing the right size?
Wow, this was a lot of complaining, time to get to the good parts!
The price. Considering how much time and effort went in to making this magazine, you just can’t beat the price. The first volume is cheaper than the second, as it usually is with these things.
The photos. Absolutely beautiful photos throughout both issues.
I haven’t read through everything yet, thats why this review is called first impression 😛 But it seems to be filled with lovely content, I’m a huge fan of reading interviews with amazingly talented people, and I can’t wait to sit down and read through.
As a graphic designer, I do cringe a bit over a couple of things, but it’s not ugly or anything (some columns are a bit too tight for my taste, and some fonts that are used make me cry). That being said, most of the magazine is designed in a playful way, and I love that they use big photos 🙂
I’ll post another review after reading both issues! But so far what I hate the most is the format the digital version is presented, give us PDF please, and my favorite thing is the photos (and the fact that they cover more dolls than just BJDs, its fun to see other kinds even if you don’t collect them!)