FOLIO: Personalities -- The Blog People Page

George Lois, Esquire’s art director from 1962 to 1972, took a no holds barred approach to design, producing some of th More...

There have been a lot of fire engine red magazine covers littering newsstands lately. Why? “There are a slew of recession clichés to choose from,” Andrew Horton, Business Week’s art director (and former FOLIO: art director) told me. “A red line pointing downward is a popular one,” in addition to bold colors (usually red), and visual metaphors of tightening, lessening and falling, he said.

While many magazines have embraced these clichés, the best recession covers, Horton confirmed, were simple and direct. “We only used red on our ["The New Frugality," below] cover because we needed it to pop.” But ev More...

Time Warner’s stock price hit a 52-week low ($9.03 per share) this past week. Time Inc., like many publishing companies, saw ad pages for its titles tumble during the first half. And, as FOLIO:’s recent story on Time Inc.’s two-year plan to grow revenues mentioned, the largest declines came from its flagship newsweekly, Time (down 21.1 percent) and Entertainment Weekly (-16.8 percent).

Despite president Ann Moore’s plan to weather the soft advertising market, More...

So far, 2008 has been the year of going it alone. We've seen a myriad of editors and assorted big media executives venturing out to pursue dreams of grandeur in their very own new media startups.

To review: Harry McCracken stepped down as PC World editor in May to launch Technologizer.com; Rieva Lesonsky, former Entrepreneur editor, left to begin SMB Connects; former New York Times Hollywood reporter Sharon Waxman left the company to launch something called the Wrap News, an entertainment Web site; ex-AOL exec Lewis Dvorkin has been quietly working a news aggregation site; and Prescott Shibles [pictured], new media vice president at Penton Me More...