Introducing the Brickset Digest
Posted by Huw,
I hope it hasn't escaped your notice that the editorial team here at Brickset has been writing some excellent articles over the last few months.
Now, thanks to Mark Guest and his team at Republic66media, the best of them have been 're-purposed' into a digital magazine, Brickset Digest, which can be downloaded for free.
I have to say I was a little sceptical at first whether it would be worth the effort but Mark and his team have done an absolutely fantastic job and the end result is stunning and I encourage you to grab yourself a copy. The spectacular presentation breathes new life into the articles and even if you have read them all before, you will enjoy seeing them in a new format.
If this copy is deemed a success we will be producing an issue every couple of months.
You will find full details on how to get hold of it after the break.
Two months of glorious content from the world’s leading LEGO fan website in one easy to read publication.
Brickset Digest is a new free publication which re-lives the Brickset highlights from the last two months as selected by the captain of the ship, Huw Millington. Huw takes us through the articles that you engaged with most and in doing so makes sure that none of us miss any of the thorough and unique content that Brickset has to offer. Huw then hands his suggestions over to the Bricks magazine team who transform them from web hits to page turners and give them to you for free via our app.
Our April - May 2016 Edition is packed full of tips, reviews and ponderings. FlagsNZ gives us a tutorial all the way from New Zealand on how to create a cheap yet surprisingly effective light-box so that you can always have something on hand to help shoot your masterpieces. Then Huw Millington leads a discussion on the fade out of moulded baseplates and also celebrates LEGO.com’s 20th birthday by taking a trip down memory lane and looking at how the site has developed over the years. CapnRex101 also contributes to the issue with a look at what sets LEGO have missed out from Star Wars Episode One and Two. Brickset Digest also takes a look at 76052 Batcave where LostInTranslation gives us a whopping two part review to tell us everything we need to know about the set and why we should, or shouldn’t, part with our hard earned cash.
With all this and more we hope that Brickset Digest gives you a chance to catch up on any articles you may have missed or re read the best articles in a beautiful new format. Enjoy the best of Brickset with this new exclusive publication.
Click here to register to get your copy of the 'The Best of Brickset'. If you are already registered to our digital platform, login now to view 'The Best of Brickset'.
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25 comments on this article
A bit sad about not having anything of my own featured, but excited for future editions! It looks great!
This is great! Signed up and read. Sad there doesn't seem to be any way to download it as a PDF for offline viewing, though.
^^ Sorry about that, it certainly wasn't intentional!
Legozebra, when you open the app you can download by clicking on the button below the edition that says Download for Offline Reading. Hope that helps.
This is amaizing and it shows just how far this page went, from a fun place where I got my LEGO news and some reviews to a place were fans all over the world comes here to have a fun time seeing more variety of articles.
It's a curious business model. Seems like a good way of convincing visitors to the site that they only need to visit once every 2 months. So wouldn't be surprised if your revenue from adverts and affiliate site sales traffic diminishes. As visitors are likely to spend less time on the site discovering its other features (eg instructions, AFOL's reviews, part lists, etc) I would expect them to see less traffic too. You still have all the work of maintaining the site plus the additional editorial work of producing a free digital magazine.
Looks great it's only a pitty that if you are using a desktop all mouse functions are disabled an there is no way to download it for offline use, so for me useless.
I can't see that happening, @bricklunch. It brings the material to a potentially new audience who might not be Brickset users already and of course encourages people to sign up at bricksmag.com which is the main purpose of Mark & co. spending so much time preparing it for 'print'.
For the record, I do nothing other than recommend articles to include.
Articles in new format looks great, very different experience imo. It will be great if you publish some articles about backstage of making a magazine. Always was curious about it.
Are you going to publish it in paper? it will be great thing to put on the shelf.
About pdf, getting pdfs from bricksmag in fact is pretty easy, couple of scripts and "Voi la". For me i always store pdfs for offline usage, but i think i can't share them without content owner permissions, even if they are free.
I have a suggestion, what if you talked about custom Lego. Like brickforge, and brickmania.
A great summary and a good read, trouble is I don't intend to carry my laptop around everywhere I go to read it and the option to download for offline reading is nowhere to see on my PC?
I really like the idea of having the magazine format available, and like the layout of it for the most part. A few issues I have noticed so far: 1) editing, editing, editing - spelling and grammar mistakes are much more noticeable/unforgivable to me in magazine format than on a website - please check and correct mistakes as much as possible! 2) there is a weird hazy cast to the whole magazine that affects the black levels and makes it annoying to read - this is on both mobile and desktop 3) some of the content could be reformatted and edited so as to not look like a blog post - things like Part 1 and Part 2 when combined into one magazine should be seamless 4) the mobile app is not user friendly. Having to hit the button on top to turn pages is annoying and outdated. I should be able to swipe or scroll or both. I can do neither. Also the toolbar on top moves when you swipe or scroll. The default view (2 pages side-by-side) is impossible to read anything with even with a large screen iPhone 6s. 5) The default sans-serif vertically compressed font is not reader-friendly. Please consider a serifed font. 6) The fonts and lines in the magazine are not vectors - this is problematic for multiple reasons: a) the compression makes them fuzzy, b) zooming in you see all the compression artifacts c) you cannot copy/paste text from it d) it's inefficient memory usage 7) I had to download another app for this to read offline? Please consider publishing this in PDF or Kindle or iBooks or ePub format so I can use mainstream readers that actually are intuitive to read this.
@TheBrickPal, your Disney CMF's review is BOUND to be included in the next issue.
^ That's very nice of you to say! But it's all up to Huw and Mark in the end.
Interesting idea, but irrespective of how important or otherwise a login/password combo might be there's no way I'm entering a password over a non-HTTPS form. (Sorry to sound like a broken record!)
^ How did you log in to post that comment?
^ You're quite right of course! I slightly over-egged my absolutism to make a point about an issue elsewhere. I shall take my deserved medicine and pipe down.
It's an interesting concept to utilise free existing content from this website and use it as a vehicle to sell/promote subscriptions to Bricks and Brick Culture Magazine via advertising within. It will also be interesting to see how many emails about the pay for magazines I'll start receiving as a result of registering just to view the free digest.
At least it is very well presented and allows the casual visitor of Brickset to catch up with the big articles they may have otherwise missed.
What is the point of repeating online content in an online magazine, which can not be downloaded as *.pdf file itself, so you can read it offline / in paper ???
I hope the authors' copyrights were respected with this secondary use ...
Can you please add in a way for it to be downloaded?
@Hew signing up for this the confirmation email returns a 404 file not found message ??
The Brickset newsletter mentions: "Find out more and how to download it."
But I don't see a download link below the publication (as LewBricks suggested), although I'm logged in.
Downloading only seems to work on "mobile" devices? Some of us still own a regular "desktop" :(
I love Brickset. I read it daily. However, the implementation of the Republic 66 digital media platform is sloppy and disappointing. I was really looking forward to the new native app, hoping it would address the many shortcomings of the browser-based app. But it doesn't. It's essentially the same, which is poorly designed and difficult to use. I agree with everything mrbradford mentions above. 1) You should be able to swipe to turn the page, not tap an ugly next button at the top of the page. 2) The pages are essentially a bitmap scan instead of live, resizable text. Some pages don't even allow you to zoom in so they are completely unreadable. 3) The whole publication has a "washed out" look which is a shame because Bricks magazine typically has beautiful photographs. 4) I realize that this particular publication is free but the digital editions of Bricks magazine are the same price as the printed copy. And as I've noted above, they are inferior in every way. If you are going to charge the same amount as the print edition, then the experience should be just as good. And right now, it certainly is not.
I really, really, really want to support Bricks magazine. I love what they are doing. But the digital editions are simply not worth it right now. I hope the folks at Republic 66 are reading this. Please fix your digital platform.
I use only a home computer so do not have access to apps. Should I still be able to do a download?
I have not found a download button and opening 'File' at the top of the page only allows me to 'Save page as".