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Posted by Franz Grieser
Apr 28, 2019 at 04:05 PM
A “flamboyant” e-mag? Difficult, if you want to support a wide selection of devices. Apple iBooks might be what you want - but that limits your organisation to Apple products.
I’d start with PDF (text and images). And if your boss wants more interaction, audio and/or video, you could provide that through a website.
For more flamboyance from the beginning, you might want to consider HTML5 (text, image, multimedia, interaction). There are WYSIWYG editors such as Adobe Dreamweaver C6 or the free Aloha Editor (alohaeditor.org) or BlueGriffon (bluegriffon.org). I cannot comment on Aloha Editor or BlueGriffon, Dreamweaver would certainly do the job - provided you have a multimedia developer who is proficient in the software. Probably not the cheapest solution, though.
Posted by Franz Grieser
Apr 28, 2019 at 04:09 PM
Sorry, Aloha Editor is only free for non-commercial usage. But that might apply to your organisation.
Posted by MadaboutDana
Apr 29, 2019 at 12:42 PM
If you’re going for an HTML/web page-based solution, you need a powerful, modern editor that can generate responsive pages.
There are now some great solutions, even for non-experts. One of the more promising recent concepts is Nicepage, which has the huge advantage that it generates output as WordPress templates, Joomla templates or just straight HTML. All output is responsive, meaning you could use the HTML in e.g. responsive e-mails (i.e. e-mails that reformat themselves to suit whatever screen you’re using, from smartphone to mammoth 4HD monitors). Nicepage is on http://www.nicepage.com; they provide a very wide variety of lego-like templates based on blocks (apps for Mac, Windows, or working directly on their server; also as embedded WordPress and Joomla editors in templates/themes).
However, if you’re going to go for the responsive web page approach (whether in e-mails or in a subscriber-only website), it would be better to involve a skilled designer, so you make an optimally professional impression. Even important, well-known companies can get it horribly wrong (just see Accenture’s recent fumble of Hertz’s international website - seriously embarrassing!)
On the plus side, there is a plethora of advice nowadays. See Litmus, for example (e.g. https://litmus.com/blog/the-how-to-guide-to-responsive-email-design-infographic), or the well-known MailChimp (https://templates.mailchimp.com/getting-started/using-mailchimp/). Here’s a quick overview by Chamaileon: https://blog.chamaileon.io/900-free-responsive-email-templates-to-help-you-start-with-email-design/
Going back to MailChimp (a resource you may want to take a closer look at, because it’ll probably impress your boss), here are some options: https://business.tutsplus.com/articles/best-mailchimp-responsive-templates—cms-30234
I’m a PDF person myself, I do confess ;-)
Cheers!
Bill
Posted by Stephen Zeoli
Apr 29, 2019 at 01:48 PM
Thanks, everyone, for the input. We’re at just the beginning stage of this process, so all advice is welcome and useful.
Right now I am leaning toward something like Flow Paper, which is PDF based, but allows you to create a bit more lively pages. I am not sure my boss will go for it, though.
More input is welcome!!!
Steve Z