Our Premiere Fall 2020 issue - in print!
- Available September, 2025 -
Greetings, everyone - Happy Summerween!
I’d like to start by giving my deepest thanks to you all for
your ongoing love and support of Autumn Brilliance magazine. You’re all a
wonderful bunch of humans that I’ve come to know and love, and you’ve made my
heart so happy!
Please allow me a bit of preamble – this is a tad lengthy,
so grab that cuppa tea, get comfie, and read on.
This year marks our fifth anniversary of bringing you what
we genuinely believe is the best in Halloween art. It’s been a privilege to do,
and five years is a true milestone that amazes me. What began as a simple idea has
taken off in the most special and incredible way, where I get to work with the
best Halloween artists in the whole entire world… so yes, it really has become
a dream come true. Like most of you, I incorporate Halloween into my everyday existence,
so creating this magazine has enhanced my overall happiness a thousandfold!
Our first issue – Premiere Fall 2020 – was released as a digital-only
magazine, meaning, it was not in print form, but one that was viewable on all electronic
devices such as smart phones and tablets. Our reasoning for this decision was,
we thought going fully digital was the most modern, up to date thing to do –
limiting our carbon footprint. We thought by offering it for free would help,
but, well, it kind of, sort of did. Only later did we fully realize our unintentional
mistake: that a visually vibrant arts magazine such as this needs to be in a
more concrete form. Because this magazine has become known as a series of collector’s
items to keep, the fact that our very first issue was absent became a conundrum.
If you have each successive printed issue (Fall 2021-2024), there is a glaring
omission, isn’t there?
Over the course of the past five years, we have fielded
many, many queries and requests both online, via email and during personal
appearances at live shows in regard to exactly when we would finally be
releasing the Fall 2020 issue in print. Our reply was often met with a sense of
disappointment that usually went like this:
“But I would love to
be able to hold a full color magazine in my hands”
“I prefer to be able to thumb through the pages to see all
the artwork”
“Seeing it on a video screen is totally different and not as
good as an actual magazine”
I totally understand that! Those being the most common complaints made us realize we
had to do something about it. We hated being
a disappointment and turning people away, so this year, we have finally,
FINALLY rectified this situation… and come Fall 2025, we will proudly present
to you the printed version of Autumn Brilliance’s premiere. Hope you’ll forgive
us… so sorry it took so long!
The wonderful thing about this issue is you get to see a
wide array of the first artists who helped put us on the map – most notably our
very first Spotlight Profile Artist, the incredible LeeAnn Kress of Charmed
Confections, who is world-renown for her fun and fabulous original art dolls
and sweet delights.
Initially I thought that putting this magazine into printed
form would be simple – but, yikes, was I in for a rude surprise. The Fall 2020
edition was created with what I’ll call an ancient graphics publishing program
that no longer exists! Here I was, thinking it would have been a snap to transfer
it over into my current publishing programs (Affinity Publisher/Canva/Adobe
Elements). But noooooo! Nothing was compatible with this old program, so I had
to start completely from scratch by dismantling the entire magazine, bit by bit,
retouching, reworking, resaving each and every image and then restructuring the
magazine into its finished state. No easy feat, it took me from February until
June to do this because the overall look really needed a fresh updating from its
rather simple original form. I think you’ll see what I mean when you see the
finished product.
But because of the fact that it took me such a long time to
redo the magazine (remember, I’m an office of one, doing it all by myself from
my home office studio), that means there is no other “new” magazine this season
– there was no time to get them both done in time for fall release. However, just
wait until next year’s issue, there is an avalanche of great artistry to be featured
in it.
So, without any further ado, we’d like to present to you,
our Fall 2020 issue – available on September 2025, at all the usual places: online
via our website (autumnbrilliancemagazine.com, which takes you to our Etsy
store to order copies of the magazine) and in person at Bewitching Peddlers of
Halloween in Marshall, Michigan on September 27th..
Again, thank you so much for your ongoing support. All of
your comments, compliments, suggestions and constructive criticisms have been
appreciated so very much. We hope to see you at the BPoH show in September!
