Thanks for taking a look and sharing your comments!

On 15/07/11 11:30, Karsten Gerloff wrote:

nice idea in general. But I don't see the connection of the topic to the wind turbines.

The turbines are primarily an artistic / stylistic device, attention grabbing and (hopefully) attractive to look at. I think the association of free software and majestic wind turbines is also a positive one, and connotes the of harnessing community power, generating energy, and shared responsibility of groups as equally sized blades on the turbine heads. These concepts are abstract and consciously grasping them isn't necessary for it to work in my view.

Using illustrations whose relationship to the subject matter is not immediately clear can make a viewer more likely to engage with it as it presents them with a puzzle to be solved. This is a common tactic used in advertising and I employed it due to the quality of competing community created flyers here in Manchester, and in order to contrast with the existing FSFE flyer which we use.

Also, the group names and URLs are hard to read.

I'll give this some thought. Personally I think that the group names are fairly readable, but if other's express the same view I'll try and find a way to resize them. Space constraints make this difficult.

And the flyer doesn't make clear what it's about. Why would anyone pick up this flyer? And if they pick it up, how would they have any idea what it refers to?

This is the biggest problem in my view. I think it does make clear what it's about - "Free Software Groups in Manchester". The purpose of the flyer is not to explain what FS is or what an FS group might be - the existing text based flyer does that, and the plan is for the two to always be side by side.

Why would anyone pick it up? Well, if they pick up both this flyer and the other one then they have both an explanation of what Free Software is, what activities FSFE does, and also what groups in their area are active and form their local community.

If I try and do too much on a single A5 sheet then it will be unclear and unattractive. Therefore I've divided the tasks and approaches between two flyers.

This flyer is intended to address an issue which isn't covered by the other one, which is the question "how can I get involved locally, where is the Manchester Free Software community, what does the local landscape look like". And in answering this question this flyer prioritises style and impact over density of information.

Sam.