The Chamber Times · The magazine of the Texas–Europe bridge
The official magazine of the Texas European Foundation. And the commission that forced LayMatic into existence, because no tool could do both jobs at once.
A magazine done properly is laid out once. This one had to be laid out twice, in two places that do not talk to each other.
The foundation had authority, it had sources and it had a story nobody else was telling, the one about the bridge between Texas and Europe. What it did not have was anywhere to publish it. And a specialist magazine lives two lives at once: the printed issue, where the prestige and the advertising rates are, and the web edition, where the reach and the search engine are. Normally those are two workflows, two teams and two layouts, and by the third issue the two versions no longer match. The brief said magazine. The better question was a different one: how do you publish the same thing twice without writing it twice. LayMatic came out of that question, the editorial manager that assembles the spread, the pagination and the article templates, and prints exactly the same content it publishes. The Chamber Times is its first client and the reason it exists.
The masthead
A serif with proper bracketed feet, tall capitals and one line underneath saying what this is: A Review of the Texas European Chamber of Commerce. Newspaper-of-record manners on a quarterly magazine. The masthead had to look older than the project, because a new outlet is asking for credit, and credit is not requested: it is carried until it is earned.
Issue No. 1, Picasso engraved like a banknote
The first cover is Picasso's face engraved the way a portrait is engraved on a dollar bill, with a question above it: what is the color of the Art. Below, in italics, the real subject of the issue, which is the business around the culture. A cultural magazine about to talk about money, said in one image and without a line of explanation.
The same content, on paper and on screen
The print generator assembles the spread with its folio line and its barcode, builds the front matter from the photo and its mask, applies the article templates and caps house advertising at a quarter of the issue. The writer writes once, on the web, and the press-ready PDF comes out of that.
The media kit as a product, not an appendix
Print and digital rates, each format with its measurements, and the full technical spec: 8.5 × 11 inch trim, 300 dpi CMYK and PDF X-1/a. An outlet that sells advertising has to be able to say exactly what it sells and what it rejects, and say it before anyone asks.
The web edition: issue archive and latest updates
The media kit: rates, formats and the technical print spec