[Scribus] Flyer for Scribus

[Gregory Pittman]

Christopher Sawtell wrote:
> On Sunday 21 May 2006 03:06, Thomas Zastrow wrote:
>   
>> Hi there,
>>
>> so, I build a small Flyer for promoting Scribus:
>>
>> http://www.thomas-zastrow.de/brochure.pdf
>>
>> Pictures and texts are from the official Scribus-Doc.
>>
>> Please, feel free to tell me what do you think about it!
>>     
>
> Firstly Personally, I hate the 3 folds on A4 format. I know 'everybody' 
> uses it, but that doesn't mean that it's the best.
>   

> Generally:-
> It's essential to decide on your target audience. If your target is 
> management, then the emphasis should be on the superior quality of the 
> generated output, secondly the portability of the application, to say 
> nothing of the cost of a licence ($0.00). otoh, if your audience is the 
> technical community emphasise the support fora, quality of code, the 
> continuous development process and 'polish' being applied to the code.
> ( Assuming that that fact is true. :-)
>
> I have a subjective impression that there seems to be too much completely 
> blank space, which could have informative stuff on it. 
>
> The font is too small for older eyes to read happily.
>
> Specifically:-
> The edges of the blue circle and pen logo seem uneven and blockey to me. 
> Isn't there an SVG version somewhere?
> On opening the pamphlet the first thing you'll see is the list of Friends 
> of Scribus. Is that what you want? shouldn't these be on the back?
>
> Humble beginnings are usually plural.
>
> Adjust the size of the illustration in the left-hand column smaller so that 
> the words to the right of it fit better.
>
> You are making a number of discrete points throughout the document, I 
> wonder if these should be separated out into bullet lists?
>   
Something to keep in mind is that Thomas was doing this on his own, out 
of an interest in the concept, not as part of a mandate from the Scribus 
developers. As he says, the material, text and images, comes from the 
Scribus website. I guess the intense critique of the material is a 
testimony to how few have actually read what's on the site.

That having been said, I think you make some valid points about layout 
and content. I agree that the "Friends of Scribus" needs to be 
de-emphasized -- on the back, probably smaller and toward the bottom of 
its panel.

Bullets or not, I too see, more or less, a sea of words without some 
visual guidance to the points that one would want to make about the 
features/advantages of Scribus. This probably would benefit from a 
separate effort to strip out the content and work with it as content, 
not as content and layout simultaneously.

One thing this work shares with other print media such as a magazine 
article, is the sense that one "needs" screenshots. This may be true, 
but only to provide some visual break-up of the written material. 
Certainly one can hardly derive any useful sense of  the appearance and 
operation of Scribus from small, static images.

I think that if we tried to come up with a list of things that such a 
pamphlet might reasonably accomplish, it might in part be:
1. Increase awareness of Scribus -- that it exists, what it's for, how 
to get it.
2. Attempt to show the utility of Scribus vs what would be perceived 
generally as its alternatives: Microsoft Word, ooffice, etc. Perhaps 
only as a separate concept one might tread on the idea of Scribus vs 
Indesign, etc. Is someone using an expensive professional piece of 
software going to be much swayed by this document?
3. If possible, this small brochure might serve as a demonstration of 
what Scribus can do, not in words, but by showing in its design, layout, 
and execution what Scribus is. To that end, it is of some interest that 
the brochure does not mention that it was created with Scribus(!).
4. Emphasize the vitality, user-friendliness, and robust support. For 
example, "Scribus has a small development team , surrounded by regular 
contributors and translators. The userbase is steadily growing and a 
large number of users are in constant contact with the development 
group, using Scribus
and contributing in their own way to the project." Maybe there isn't 
such a need or desirability to use the word "small", and otherwise the 
rest of the language seems relatively passive.

Greg