Stylecards № 0

Starting any new venture brings forth a mixture of excitement and angst. There’s the novelty of trying something new tempered by forces outside one’s control. Living in a world where HD and 4K screens are common, but constrained by Second Life’s image size limits. Each day seems to bring new challenges.

The original intent was to create an in-world edition of Stylecards and make it available for free, but to also create a PDF version available for Patreon supporters. Magazines aren’t normally square in the real world, so the plan was to make an A4 sized PDF for Patreon and a scaled down version for SL. An A4 sheet scaled down to 1024 pixels tall will have a width of 724 pixels. Today I noticed that Second Life doesn’t understand this size and converts to to 1024 pixels tall and 512 pixels wide. Facing the option of making the magazine smaller or making it larger, I opted to go large.

Discovering problems like these is the primary reason for creating Stylecards № 0. Issue № 0 wasn’t originally planned, but as the deadline for Issue № 1 drew closer, it made sense to create it to find any potential complications and resolve them.

Another reason for creating this issue is to serve as a pitch of sorts. It’s a pitch to advertisers who want a new venue for reaching Second Life residents. Several pages in this issue are devoted to ad mockups giving potential advertisers an idea about what they’re paying for. For the ads that include links or landmarks, they should work as intended in-world. In the PDF version, they will point to the appropriate locations on the Second Life website.

It’s also a pitch to creators who would love to have their work shown in a fashion magazine. Clothes, shoes, accessories, hair, makeup, skins, heads, bodies, buildings, decor;
we’re interested in all of it.

We also want to pitch to models, photographers, and writers who aspire to bring their views of Second Life to a new audience. Bringing together talented people from different backgrounds is one of the goals of Stylecards, and hiring models, photographers, and writers is a great way to achieve that.
For the rare in-world newsstand or bookstore that’s looking to carry new merchandise, we’re eager to do business with you. We love browsing the aisles of bookstores in RL, and that’s something we’d love to do in SL as well.

Finally, for any residents that want to create magazines or picture books of their own, but don’t want to buy a publishing system, contact us and we’ll see what we can do.
If the pitch intrigues you, please feel free to send me an IM or drop me a notecard in-world.