Nick,
Thanks for the response.
There are many different reasons I decided to go with a magazine format. Individually, I'm not sure all my points are necessarily all that strong.
When I first decided to do this, a website was my first go to, but I couldn't help shake the feeling of... "Ugh, not ANOTHER website." Trying to follow all the websites is hard... I try, but I know I miss more content than I get a chance to see.
If people don't see it right away.. it tends to get lost in the shuffle, and then it becomes all about SEO, and fighting for rank.
I didn't want to get lost in the shuffle, or have to worry about the SEO fight, and the constant changes, or add to the problem of information overload when it came to all the websites.
I wanted to slow things down, and create something that would stand the test of time a bit more, I guess. Which may sound odd, since.. as you said.. magazines in general may seem to be a thing of the past.
But then I thought... I keep a bunch of filmmaking magazines, and I do go back through them every once in awhile. Some just for fun (Fangoria), and others because I'll remember a specific article.
Now granted, those are print, not digital.
But really, in this day and age... everyone has their smartphones and tablets. They're easy to carry around everywhere you go, easier to organize... and with an App... all the magazine issues are contained nice and neat in one little icon.
It'd take a long time for many of the articles to be considered "outdated" and many would never. For example, in our first issue... we have an article written by Steven Kalher called "The Key to Being an Insightful Director".
It's a wonderful article that deals with hooking your audience with the story, and the give and take between the director and the audience.
I felt like.. on a website, that article would get it's 15 minutes of fame, and be lost afterwords.
But in a magazine... it would always be there, easily referenced, easily carried anywhere you go, wouldn't require internet access if you were filming somewhere without wifi or cell service, and (digital) less messy and inexpensive than a print magazine. Digital also provides the benefit of interactive features such as video... which I felt was important.
So I guess simply put... I just felt that the magazine format slowed things down, and made things a bit more simple for the reader. If that makes sense...?
So although each individual point may not be that strong, I believe that all together, it's steered me towards a more unique solution. And feedback has been great. People really seem to love the idea.
EDIT: 2 things
Also... we did a lot of things with the magazine that would make it easy to print, if the demand was there. A lot of the articles/artwork is set up with bleeds, etc. That said, there are definitely some articles and layouts that would have to be rearranged a bit... and videos/links would have to be replaced with QR codes and web address.
But it's entirely possible based on how we did original InDesign Doc.
Second - I'm curious to know which columns you are seeing that need adjusted. Layout and Design is definitely not a strength of mine. My mother has been doing it most of my life however. So she helped me in a LOT of places... but I certainly may have messed up a few areas. The video of the pages flipping contains a very outdated copy of the issue 1. A lot of what is seen there has been changed, but the SAMPLES image should be fairly up to date.
Let me know what you're seeing! I'm definitely not to big to say I don't make mistakes...