FOLIO: Section Blogs by Design and Production

The Magazine Medic

sbotelho — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 14:19:14 -0500

THE PATIENT: Success
AGE: 114 years
VITALS: Improving
PROGNOSIS: Good

The kind of high-profile success that Success’ readers desperately desire has largely eluded the magazine itself over the course of its long life. The title has encountered at least two near-death experiences, yet fought back to publish another day. On that basis alone, some may award this book a medal for its mettle.

The most recent incarnation of the magazine, which emerged from ownership’s self-induced coma in 2008, shows promise. (Its claimed, unaudited, circulation is 200,000.) It also shows how challenging is the job of editors who run inspiration-and-advice guides.
How many ways can you persuade readers to pay for a magazine that exists almost solely for the purpose of encouraging their (sometimes unrealistic) ambitions?

What We Prescribe

• Who runs this book, really? An editorial director, an editor-in-chief, and an editor all get credit. Confusing, no?—and troubling as well. Another issue: Names of everyone in the ad sales and marketing departments are accompanied on the masthead by contact details. No such info for the edit staff. Together, these decisions suggest to the Magazine Medic that the book is driven by the business side. Nothing out of the ordinary there, but we see it as a prescription for a compromised editorial mission. At the very least, tell readers how to reach editors.

• Success does an admirable job of mixing it up—adding first-person tales of winning strategies, celebrity profiles, and sure-fire counsel to the editorial salad. The problem is execution. One area in particular that could stand improvement: Headlines and decks, which too often are ill-conceived. We need to know, immediately, who these story subjects are and why they matter.

• Cultivate franchise writers and columnists for Success. It’s comforting to open the book and notice familiar names, such as leadership guru John Maxwell and celeb physician Mehmet Oz, but haven’t we seen them elsewhere? As in everywhere? Far easier said than done, we know, but creating a stable of Successful columnists, such as biz books Fortune and Forbes have managed to do, is a clear signal to readers that we too have our in-house stars.

• Reduce the size of the Tech Tools section. These days, honestly, it’s damn near impossible to keep on top of these ever-changing toys on the daily gizmo blogs. Trying to recommend cool products in a long-lead monthly magazine is a dangerous gamble. Inevitably, as we have seen many times, magazine editors will anoint a gadget a good bet—only to discover weeks later that the industry and consumers have already said, “Uh, not so much.”

Prognosis

Especially in times of economic woe for so many Americans, this is a magazine worth nourishing back to health. Its sweet smell of success may return yet again.

A well-known reporter, writer, and editor—at Time Inc., Primedia and other American publishing companies—Cable Neuhaus has frequently been called on to help create, repair, and run consumer and trade titles of various kinds.

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TIME’s Cover Double Take

sbotelho — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 10:09:47 -0500

In an interesting move, TIME magazine will run the cover art from its December 12, 2011 issue again on its January 16, 2012 issue. The photo of Mitt Romney’s picture is the same in both treatments, but the headlines and positioning of the image covering the upcoming edition will change. See the covers, and read TIME managing editor Rick Stengel’s letter about the Iowa caucuses as well as the cover decision, below.

Why Iowa Matters (Even If It Shouldn’t)

Iowa is an outlier. The 122,000 people who showed up to vote in the state's caucuses represent less than a fifth of registered Iowa Republicans and exactly 0.09% of the U.S. electorate. In a representative democracy, Iowa is not very representative. It is 91% white and has few Latinos, not many immigrants and low unemployment. Iowa is also the only place in presidential politics where retail campaigning can still make a difference. Jimmy Carter showed this back in 1976, and Rick Santorum followed the same playbook this year.

But Iowa matters, in part because the candidates and media put so much emphasis on it. Probably too much. We would all be better off with a regional primary system, but that's not in the cards. So after more than a year of polls, debates, position papers and commercials, we finally have actual people voting, which is the fundamental right in a democracy. That's really why Iowa matters.

If this week's cover feels a little familiar, there's a good reason for that. In early December, we put Mitt Romney on the cover and asked, "Why Don't They Like Me?" — a question that has been at the heart of the GOP primary process. This week, in the wake of Romney's razor-thin win in Iowa, we've updated and revised the question, using the other half of the same portrait of Romney. The first cover got a lot of attention, not least from Governor Romney himself, who began annotating the cover for those who asked him to sign it. Now the voters in New Hampshire and beyond can answer the question for themselves.
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Face Up: 2011 Year in Review

sbotelho — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 09:59:17 -0500

2011 was a year of redesigns and relaunches, as magazine covers aimed to provoke (and as a result, to sell). Some efforts amounted in positive buzz and hiked newsstand numbers; others inspired seemingly unending rounds of media heckling (Newsweek’s July 4th cover, which featured a very Photoshopped image of the late Princess Diana, here’s lookin’ at you). Here, FOLIO: asks three of our 2011 FaceUp participants to weigh in on their favorite covers of the year.

TIME
October 17, 2011

Publisher: Time Inc.
Design Director: D.W. Pine
Managing Editor: Rick Stengel

“I can’t guess how many magazine covers have been designed in the past year (and I’m only counting the ones that didn’t end up in the AD’s drawer). 365 days, 12 months, 52 weeks—hundreds, thousands, maybe more. Weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, bi-monthly, quarterly—you get the idea. Consequently, when I was asked to pick one favorite from the past year, I almost balked. After thinking about it for awhile, I realized that this year I could actually answer that question with conviction. Anyone who’s been in the publishing business for twenty plus years (particularly on the design side) will understand my answer.”

- Mick Schnepf, Art Director, Traditional Home Magazine

Complex
August/September 2011

Publishing Company: Complex Media
Editor-in-Chief: Noah Callahan-Bever
Art Director: Brent Rollins

“Hard to go wrong with a beautiful cover subject like Beyoncé, but the Complex design and photo team raise the bar for a celebrity cover by wrapping Beyoncé in a beautiful set of undulating typography. For this Style & Design cover story, Complex recruited photographer Thierry Le Gouès and artist Ebon Heath. Stunning photography, sensual typography, and killer styling come together in this iconic, arresting cover. A ‘Cover of the Day’ for SPD back in July—this cover is my Cover of the Year.”

-Josh Klenert, Society of Publication Designers, Vice President, Board of Directors

ESPN Magazine
May 16, 2011

Publisher: ESPN The Magazine LLC
Art Directors: Jason Lancaster
Editor-in-Chief: Gary Belsky (now former EIC)

“The gruesome image is stunning, I couldn’t stop looking at it. And I loved the decision to understate the size of the main cover line and put it in the yellow strip.”

- David Speranza, design director, Bicycling Magazine

Have a unique “cover” story? Contact associate editor Stefanie Botelho at sbotelho@red7media.com.
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State of the Art of the Newsstand

Matt Kinsman — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 10:28:42 -0500

If you're in the business of creating, recreating, designing or, God forbid, rescuing magazines on life support, you need to know what the state of the art is at this point.
You don't have to look very far. The dozen or so titles that define the latest details in packaging are on your newsstand.

Some sell well and some very well. And some very well for the past few decades. Examining them amounts to a master's degree in magazine crafts from how to construct a great cover to what's sexy with fashion photography and trendy typography thrown in.

1. Typography
If you want to look up-to-date these days try using very, very condensed sans-serif type. NEW BEAUTY ($9.95 at your newsstand) does it very well issue after issue. However, I can't guarantee that it won't look tired by next year. It's an old rule: the trendier you are, the faster you fall.

2. Info-graphics
Thanks to the legendary Nigel Holmes (graphics "that try to explain things"), TIME made info-graphics an integral part of the magazine since it was re-designed by the great Walter Bernard over 30 years ago. The graphics are more glorious and more frequent than ever. Seems sometimes that most stories come with a chart, a table, a map or a list.

3. Front of the Book
You can pretty much figure out how a magazine is trying to position itself by the importance it puts on the pages that precede the well.How one constructs the front of the book has become a science, from the length of the pieces, to the frequency of graphics and columnists. Esquire wants to attract young men with buying power and it does it in a skillful, literate way. No junky graphics, no quick fixes. And for the first 110 pages of the current issue.

4. Back of the Book
Bloomberg BusinessWeek gets high marks for everything from the reportage to the graphics. However, the only part that doesn't take itself too seriously and is habit-forming is the Etc. section. It's fast-moving and funny and makes no pretense at being useful. Check out "Great Moments in Nepotism", the only article in the issue that will stay with you.

5. Cutting Edge Design
Before there was Conde Nast's Wired, there was Wired. Wired only pays homage to itself and surprises all the time. Some of the graphics need a guide book but the overall package is always amazing.

6. Fashion Photography
Karl Lagerfeld's photographs of the latest couture in Harper's Bazaar are not 100 percent professional but they're straight-forward and totally up-to-date in a strange way.

7. The Sexiest Magazine
ESPN The Body Issue. Ordinary people who happen to be athletes who happen to be sexier than models and movie stars.

8. How to Talk to Women
Cosmopolitan's genius at knowing how to write edgy cover lines that barely avoid the magazine from being sold in a brown bag is still on a roll after 40 years. Although some buzz words have come and gone (last year it was "revenge"), there are still always three mentions of sex.

9. How To Talk to a Generation
Rolling Stone, like nobody else, has always known how to earmark everything that interests its audience from music to technology to politics. To say that it's influential is an understatement (it was one of the first magazines to run Candidate Obama on the cover) and its mix of cover lines is always a good barometer of current popular culture.

10. How to Look Useful
New York is the original service magazine. It's hit some high notes before but Adam Moss has redefined the state of the art. New York is packed with useful stuff presented with obsessive detail. It's the ultimate survival guide to the City and it's thicker and sells more copies than ever before.

11. How To Wow Them on the Newsstands
Vanity Fair picks big stars and big stories and world class gossip presented in elegant ways. The magazine's covers always stand out, the main headline is usually the name of the cover subject. I've counted the words on VF covers for months at a time and the average has consistently been 70, which you might also consider the state of the art.

12. How to Keep Them Coming
The New Yorker, since 1925. Newsstand copies of the magazine get a flap with the headlines on it. The result is one and a half covers: a full-bleed cartoon plus all the best magazine writing in America clearly listed separately.

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In a Dotcom World, Have Publishers Forgotten How to Negotiate Printer Contracts?

Matt Kinsman — Thu, 30 Sep 2010 10:08:51 -0400

Production departments have been among the areas most ravaged by lay-offs, and some observers say that loss of expertise leaves publishers at a disadvantage when negotiating printer contracts.
"When publishers got rid of the production manager, they got rid of people who understood contracts," publishing consultant Steve Frye tells me. "Now you have people negotiating printing contracts who are editors, art directors, publishers, who don't really know anything about what the terms should be. Many standard clauses that protected publishers from increases have been eliminated."
Frye cites paper pricing as an example. "Publishers used to buy specific paper, say Chocktaw 40 pound, and the printer would say, ‘OK, if you buy this, your price is $42.50/100 weight.' If Chocktaw raises rates, you'll have to pay more for paper. Fair enough."
But, Frye says, the trend over the last few years has many printers selling generic grades rather than specific brands. "If you've got a 40-pound paper groundwood, it might be Chocktaw or it might not," he says. "Publishers used to be very specific about whiteness, brightness, etc. As an industry we don't have that luxury anymore. Now printers say, ‘We will sell you 40-pound groundwood at $42.50' and when 40-pound groundwood goes up, prices go up. But when it goes down, prices are supposed to go down. It was easy to track when you were tied to specific brand or mill. But when you're tied to a grade, it's based on rumor."
But if that's the case, then you're at the wrong printer, according to one former publishing executive turned printer rep. "Printers should be able to disseminate information in a timely manner to customers," says the source.
Potential Trouble Spots

For Blood-Horse Publications, key contract expectations include a clear understanding of the contract timeline; any allowances with fixed pricing or payment terms; the insurance statement in case of fire, flooding, etc; and a paper pricing agreement, which covers whether price is set for a specific period of time of if the price will fluctuate.
"In our situation our contract is very straightforward and clear," says production director Lisa Coots. "If paper prices increase or decrease, we receive proper notification in writing before the new price goes into effect. We also look for bundle prices since we publish multiple publications. And, if an electronic edition is included with the contract, we request a pricing model for those services."
While Ogden Publications has seen some more leverage in recent years due to a softening demand on capacity and currently uses in-house talent to negotiate contracts, publisher Bryan Welch suggests getting a consultant to oversee contract development if the publisher doesn't have in-house expertise. "Contracts are highly complex, they change over time and it's clearly a process in which each side stands to gain or lose great advantages based on technicalities," he adds.
Potential trouble spots include handling charges and paper storage prices, according to Welch. "Sometimes that's below the radar and can hit a publisher hard. Whether a printer acquires or doesn't acquire paper for a publisher, either of those arrangements can be problematic depending on how the printer is handling surcharges and commissions. Sometimes those have different names in different contracts-you have to drill down the terminology when it comes to paper, handling, transportation and storage. All those sorts of things can become quite expensive if we don't negotiate aggressively."
Another area to watch is the printer's prerogative to hold on to printed matter in case of disputed invoice, says Welch. "Historically, printers have reserved the right to sit on a dated publication until the dispute is resolved," he adds. "That can destroy a publisher's business."
Require a clear outline of all charges and costs regarding co-palletization and co-mailing options, according to the publisher-turned-printer. "These are relatively new processes and often the charges for admin and freight costs are confusing," the source says. And in these days of rampant consolidation, there should be a clause giving the option of opting out of a contract if the printer is sold to another printer.
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Cover Critique: Glamour Makes ‘Em Feel Good

Tue, 20 Jul 2010 10:25:29 -0400

There are no stars in Glamour, this year’s winner of ASME's Magazine of the Year category. There are mostly average-looking women in their early 20s looking thrilled to be there.

Glamour positions itself as the Champion of the Average. It’s accessible, empowering, useful and happy. It’s the anti-chic, anti-supermodel, anti-bitch bible of the majority, even though sometimes the magazine confuses its readers with the average zombie.

“Glamour never ceases to make me feel like a million bucks”, writes reader Alison Wilhelm of Southbridge, Massachusetts, “thank you for recognizing that women of all shapes and sizes and colors are unique and beautiful” (page 30).

The August 2010 cover does its best not to be elitist or controversial starting with the model, semi-celebrity and “Zac’s Best Friend”, Vanessa Hudgens (“I love animals, love, love, love, love animals”, page 143). She’s so average that she might go unnoticed if not for the two docile ASPCA kittens she’s holding.

The six cover stories are all service or advice including two health-related ones. The one possible think-piece candidate, Glamour columnist Katie Couric interviewing Alexandra Cousteau, granddaughter of the legendary ocean explorer, didn’t make the cut.

Every cover line is accompanied by a deck. Five out of the six decks have a verb in them. Two out of the three most effective buzzwords have made it to the cover. “Sexiest” and “free” are very evident. The only one missing is “new”. The main cover story, “The Sexiest Jeans for Your Body”, is backed by a medallion that promises free jeans inside. The story includes models, pedestrians, readers and other subjects wearing all kinds of jeans. They’re mostly under $100, although a single pair of Armanis at $295 has sneaked in. Jeans are the uniform of the masses. You couldn’t pick anything less controversial. Glamour points out inside that this is The Jeans Issue. It’s no doubt a guaranteed money-maker year in and year out.

The cover design combines day-glo pink with red and black cover lines against the all-purpose white background. You can see the pink logo from ten feet away on the newsstands. Glamour’s 70 words of cover lines show great skill in communicating with its readers and with its even larger potential audience.

Glamour’s trick is to address the reader directly, “Find your perfect pair”, “Do the quick self-check today”, “Don’t worry, your boss does it too”. The results are two-fold: they help create a sense of community and they make everyone in the audience feel counted—no matter how average they are.
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Summer Covers: What’s Hot and What’s Not

Wed, 07 Jul 2010 12:13:03 -0400

With its July issue, GQ writes the rules for creating a cool cover. They’re not complicated rules and they should be of help to just about anybody worried about lagging behind in perception by newsstand buyers. Esquire’s June/July cover gets caught with a potential loser in Knight and Day star Tom Cruise, trips up on its own cover lines and design, but wins points for its service orientation.

Rule One: Pick a cover subject under 20. Taylor Lautner can hardly act but he’s hit the jackpot by playing a werewolf in the Twilight movies. And, most of all, he was born in 1992.

Rule Two: Write 100 words’ worth of cover lines without looking crowded. Some of the text is small but there’s plenty of room to spare and it’s easy to read.

Rule Three: Use nothing but caps. Caps are supposed to be harder to read but when they’re set in a modern sans serif font they’re, in fact, very manageable.

Rule Four: Set all the type in either black, red or silver.

Rule Five: Use a white background. Sill the most effective attention getter on the newsstands.

Rule Six: Label your best reportage SPECIAL REPORT

Rule Seven: Switch the traditional placements around. Instead of appearing on the top left, under the logo, the main headline is the top right hand corner where the snipe usually appears. The snipe is now on the right where the less important cover lines should go: they’re on the left this time.

Rule Eight: Unlike Men’s Health, put the styling credits on the inside instead of the cover.

Esquire’s June/July cover sold its soul to Hollywood publicists to score Tom Cruise. But the summer release, Knight and Day, got demeaning reviews across the board. The result is that the cover is pitching a loser, but that’s not all.

Uncool: The main headline HOW TO BE A MAN. It doesn’t work in combination with Scientologist Tom Cruise. I’ll leave it at that.

Uncool: YOUR BALLS, a cover line that may have shocked us in 1968, but that was a long time ago. Now it just sounds dirty.

Uncool: The messy design had its day three years ago. Now it looks tired and vain. In fact, the cover is so messy that it’s run out of room after 40 words.

Uncool: There’s no mention of Jennifer Lawrence, the prettiest person in the issue.

Uncool: No mention either of the 25-page MaHB (Man at His Best) section. Funny how magazines forget their perennials.

Cool: Esquire’s cover lines have page numbers. Except for Reader’s Digest, they’re found mostly on trade magazine covers, but they’re being used more and more because they save time.

Except for fashion and food, GQ makes no attempt at being useful while Esquire is all service. It’s paid off before and will, no doubt, work this time regardless of the uninspired choice of cover subject.
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Six Things B-to-B Editors, Designers Can Learn From Consumer Magazines

Matt Kinsman — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 15:26:37 -0400

Business-to-business publishers seem to be going one of two ways when it comes to their remaining print magazines; either slashing budgets and staff to the bare bones as they scramble to develop replacement products or investing in the print title as a premium offering within their multimedia stable.
Those choosing the latter route are increasingly turning to expertise from the consumer world. Cygnus Business Media recently hired designer J.C. Suares, who has worked with titles ranging from Fast Company to Variety to ESPN. Reed Exhibition's JCK, which unveiled a new and expanded design earlier this month, tapped art director Robert Newman, former design director of consumer titles Real Simple, Fortune and Details, to lead the makeover, which included adoption of a large format (10x12), new sections and openers and (going against the industry trend) heavier and more opaque paper stock.
The new issue (produced by custom publisher TMG, which retained much of the original JCK staff) boasts a 240-page folio and a 48 percent increase in ad pages to 120.
I spoke with Newman about what b-to-b magazines can take away from consumer titles. Newman took pains to say he doesn't want to come across as a consumer guy who is critical of b-to-b. "To me this is a fascinating challenge and the b-to-b sector is very exciting-people are going through a lot of re-imagining and the whole concept of melding the consumer approach with the editorial integrity of the b-to-b approach and their connection with their customers is very exciting," Newman says. "I'm hoping a lot of other b-to-b magazines take up the challenge-it's a cool and very vital section of publishing that we'd like to see not only survive but thrive."
1. Package The Magazine
With JCK, Newman oversaw an effort that completely remade the magazine from design to paper stock to editorial approach. "There is no denying that b-to-b magazines know their stuff," Newman told me. "But traditionally they've been weaker at what consumer magazines are good at, which is packaging. Before the recent economic downturn and shift away from print, a lot of b-to b magazines didn't have to worry about packaging. As long as they delivered the essential material the audience wanted, the ads were there. Now it's more of a challenge and, like consumer publishers, they really have to sell the magazine. We wanted to bring more of a consumer magazine packaging to the quality of b-to-b content."
Use the magazine architecture to let people know where they are at all times, Newman says. "The editors re-imagined the front of book so instead of one traditional opener they came up with five or six new sections-business section, fashion, news. Each section has its own color palette and each has a very strong opener with use of white space and logos on every page to break up the sections. Even within sections we are very aware of the spacing so it's not essential to have little things everywhere. Each section is a mini magazine where you use different texture and pacing. That is a much more traditional consumer approach."
2. Create A Sense of Value
JCK's new oversize format and heavier paper stock is reminiscent of W. "We're creating a sense of luxury and value with the magazine," says Newman. "Fortune recently increased its size and paper stock, which is the direct opposite way things have been going. The idea is people will continue to read the magazine if we make this more of a keeper product. JCK is arguably the type of magazine a retailer will leave in the store. Before it was not necessarily one you'd show customers or leave out. It's a cool kind of tool people in stores can use day-to-day."
3. Differentiate Advertising from Editorial
One of the problems with b-to-b magazines is that the advertising is not quite as glamorous or as well designed as in consumer titles. "Many of the ads are designed by the advertisers themselves and not to criticize but sometimes they aren't very elegant," Newman says. "One of the challenges for b-to-b is to make the ads work but also to distinguish them from the edit. Partial-page ads--half page, two-thirds of a page--are often a challenge for the editor. Use white space to separate ads so it's clear and clean. If every b-to-b magazine adopted a rule that you had to have a quarter inch of white space between ads and edit I'd be a much happier man."
4. It's Better to be Clean Than Clever
Newman says many b-to-b magazines have excellent design, such as McGraw-Hill's Architectural Record and Greensource. However, he also recognizes that most b-to-b titles don't have the budgets of their consumer peers. "You don't need design that's award-winning or edgy or even creative but you do need a design that is orderly and structured and clean at a minimum," he adds. "The reader needs to know where they are at all times in the magazine."
5. Think About How The Reader Reads The Magazine
One of Newman's biggest pet peeves is the editorial assumption that all readers read the magazine the same way and they do it cover-to-cover. "We all know that's not true but many b-to-b titles don't edit the magazine for different types of readers," he says. "It's no shame to say only a third of your readers skim the magazine. Your job as a responsible editor or art director is to deliver a package of whatever they want, even if they only read the captions. People does this so brilliantly-every photo has a caption. Some magazines don't do photo captions because they figure, ‘Oh it's in the story.' Be aware of how readers use the magazine. If you could, go to people's business and watch how they read magazine-where do they read it? At work? In bed? If you're JCK, how many retailers read the magazine at the counter? That might make me rethink how we put it together."

Newman says that when he worked at Entertainment Weekly, every story, caption and sidebar was surveyed with readers. "We knew what the readers were reading," he adds. "Business-to-business magazines don't have that luxury but they need to act in that way and challenge themselves at all times to make sure there's a dialogue going on with readers. It starts with the editor and a culture of explaining and articulating, not just throwing copy on page."
6. White Space Is Your Friend--Stop Trying To Jam So Much On One Page
One of the biggest problems with b-to-b design is trying to do too much on one page, according to Newman. "More is not always better--readers are very busy and overworked, they don't have a spare moment," he says. "What they really want is for your magazine to curate a little more, not deliver everything, just the most important stuff. Allow more space in the magazine."
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Paper Prices on the Rise Again

Tue, 04 May 2010 13:55:20 -0400

Last week, the American Spectator sent a letter asking some 60,000 e-mail subscribers to cough up donations to help offset increased paper costs. “Please help us fill the $26,000 shortfall created by the perverse incentives of the liberal agenda,” the right-wing conservative magazine’s publisher wrote. “Our paper costs are rising for NEXT MONTH'S ISSUE.”

Partisan politics aside, the cost of paper is in fact creeping out of the darkness. For a couple of years, magazine publishers have enjoyed flat or even declining paper prices as the supply had largely outstripped demand. That trend is coming to an end.

Over the last few weeks, several paper makers have announced price hikes on their magazine-grade stocks, including coated freesheet (CFR), coated groundwood (CGW) and supercalendered (SC). Just when revenues are finally beginning to pick up (at least for some), most publishers of printed magazines will need to either make adjustments or be able to eat the added expense for paper.

Click on the chart below (then click on the pop-up chart to increase its size) to see the recently-announced rate increases, listed by paper maker and effective date (courtesy of Midland Paper):

For the full list of price hikes, including all paper grades, click here.
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From Manufacturing and Distribution to E-Media Delivery

Mon, 19 Apr 2010 08:30:06 -0400

Mobile Apps, e-readers, augmented reality, print, Web and social networking. Media continues the trend toward fragmentation that began early last century, and emerging technologies promise the rapid delivery of personalized content to users where and when they want it.

The selection of available devices will surely become more sophisticated and diverse over time as will the expectations of users. What does that mean for media executives who are trying to build a new business model while attempting to figure out how to keep up with the consumers’ increasing demand for fresh content? How should we organize our companies so we can remain flexible, scalable and profitable? How useful is our past experiences in developing the next steps in our relationship with our readers and other customers? Does company size matter in the same ways it used to?

If you are like me, you may have thought about similar questions recently. With a focus on operations, I spend a lot of time thinking about the conventional M&D (manufacturing & distribution) departments. Technology has greatly changed these departments over the past few years to the point where many practices today are completely different from those in place five years ago. That being said, many of these departments can trace their origins back to the height of the industrial age when high volume press runs fueled the national distribution of generalized content.

I often think about what will become of the process-oriented folks who operate within these teams. How will they continue to serve their firms as we navigate into a new business landscape where print advertising can no longer be expected to drive future growth? Perhaps, the conventional M&D departments will be reorganized and emerge as a new breed of Media Delivery specialists who are not tied to any specific medium but service all. If so, then these teams will likely be focused on developing innovative ways to introduce workflow automation to handle an unprecedented proliferation of content development. Internal automation mixed with the correct balance of external sourcing can enable the efficient delivery of monetizeable content across multiple media platforms.

Looking for Answers

I have been conducting research on these very topics for my doctoral dissertation with a team at Pace University. Throughout this academic journey, we have reached out to many media experts in an effort to gain a better understanding of what may be occurring in our industry from an advertising, editorial and operations perspective.

My specific interest has focused on the affects of emerging technologies on print consumer magazines. The scope of the research has been broad and it examines industry level change as it uniquely relates to variations in the types of content distributed, the organization of resources, and the success rates of new strategies based on the implementation timing.

The project is coming to a close and before I gather my findings I would like to open up a survey to gather your opinion regarding the answers to some of these questions—it should take only a few minutes. All responses will be kept anonymous and no references to a specific company or individual will be shared.

I expect to release the final results from this study on FOLIOmag.com later this year.

Please click here to take the survey.
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Battle of the Magazine Covers: The Atlantic vs. Harper's

Wed, 24 Mar 2010 09:54:04 -0400

One would think that at least one of two magazines that have been competing for attention on the newsstands for a combined 200 years would be a bit savvier about what they put on their covers. It seems as if neither the Atlantic (founded in 1857) nor Harper's (founded in 1850) have learned many lessons about newsstand culture over the past 100 years or so, let alone the past five or six.

God knows both magazines have lived through many a crisis. They've managed to survive near-bankruptcy and sudden changes of editors (Harper's) as well as new owners, new editors and having to abandon their native city after 150 years (The Atlantic) and yet, they're better magazines than they've ever been (although Harper's needs a redesign).

If only the covers followed some basic rules:
1. Does the cover really tell you what's inside?
2. Is the main headline compelling?
3. Is the main image compelling?
4. Are you blowing your horn?

Harper's main headline “The Vanishing Liberal” is accompanied by a bland illustration of headless bodies, some holding signs—proof that the editors meddled. Unless you're attracted to depressing 5,000+ word essays, there is nothing in the combination of the two that might make you want to pick up the magazine. If only the cover were clearer and gave the reason liberals are vanishing. To quote from the piece: "No other president in our history had so thoroughly spurned his political base in so short a time.” Does that mean that Obama betrayed the liberals who voted for him? Are we getting somewhere now?

Harper's uses a New Yorker-like flap to sell newsstands. It's gratifying to see that they've sold advertising on the flip side of the flap, but the flap itself is underused. They should look at the New Yorker's and count the words. They should also look at the pecking order and the clever use of decks with each cover line.

HARPER'S COVER INDEX
Number of elements on the single contents page: 20
Number of stories on the cover: 6
Number of bylines: 6
Number of stories on the flap: 5
Number of times the autism piece is mentioned on the flap: 2
Number of times “Exclusive” and “Special Report” are used on the cover: 0
Number of depressing pieces out of 6: 5
Number of pieces translated from other languages: 3

The Atlantic’s Obama cover package, “Why He’s Right” doesn't exist. It's a compilation of three pieces in different parts of the magazine, none of which claim that Obama is right about anything. In fact, the “On the Economy” cover line refers to “Inside Man,” Joshua Green's 10,000-word piece on Timothy Geithner, which is by far the longest in the magazine. By the looks of the pictures, it's obvious that Geithner was headed for the cover, but the editors must have had second thoughts when they realized that their subject was slated to appear in a half-dozen other magazines, including Vogue.

The main headline would have benefited from a long, chatty deck that cleared up “Why He’s Right” and tied the three articles under a single umbrella but, as it is, it's got no clarity, no drama—even Obama is looking in the distance—and, therefore, no impact.

THE ATLANTIC'S COVER INDEX
Number of entry points on the three contents pages: 27
Number of stories on the cover: 7
Number of bylines: 3
Number of decks: 0
Number of times Exclusive” and “Special Report” are used on the cover: 0

Final grades:
Harper's: C
The Atlantic: C
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Quad Offers Realistic But Promising Outlook on Magazine Trend

Mon, 08 Mar 2010 10:58:41 -0500

I found this summary by Quad/Graphics of the state of the printing industry to be both sobering and possessing of a businesslike optimism. It comes as part of an SEC filing made on March 5 in connection with Quad's attempt to go public and possible acquisition of World Color later this year.
Print Industry Trends

Demand for printed products has generally correlated with real gross domestic product growth, as economic activity and advertising spending are key drivers of demand for printing and related services. More recently, the global economic recession has caused advertisers to dramatically reduce spending. Throughout 2008 and 2009, magazine publishers facing diminished advertising pages reduced total page counts, catalog marketers reduced page counts, circulation and the frequency of print campaigns, retailers curbed investments in store inventory and reduced advertising, and other advertisers reduced their direct mail campaigns, particularly in the banking, insurance, credit card, real estate and nonprofit industries. Decreasing print volumes caused by the impacts of the economic recession, increases in postage expenses (which significantly outpaced inflation over the last ten years) and the increase in the use of alternative marketing technologies, as discussed below, led many printing businesses to fail and the industry to undergo consolidation. The printing industry consolidation and decreasing print volumes have created significant pricing pressures and excess capacity in the printing industry. According to capacity utilization data from the United States Federal Reserve System, the excess capacity in the printing industry, which had not fully recovered from the 2002 and 2003 recession, further increased recently, with printing industry capacity utilization of 67.4% in January 2010, compared to 69.6%, 77.7% and 80.5% in January 2009, 2008 and 2007, respectively.

In response to the economic recession, Quad/Graphics believes that traditional users of print and print-related services have turned their focus to generating and tracking the highest returns on their marketing dollars. In addition, the emergence of alternative marketing technologies, such as online distribution and hosting of content and mobile technologies, on both a stand-alone basis and in conjunction with other marketing channels, has resulted in these traditional users of print and related services allocating their marketing and advertising spending across a wide and expanding selection of non-print electronic media options. Quad/Graphics believes that advertisers and other traditional users of print find that they receive the greatest return on their marketing dollars when they effectively utilize data to target the appropriate customers and combine digital alternatives with customized print products in a targeted, multi-channel marketing campaign.

In this increasingly multi-channel marketplace, Quad/Graphics believes that the printing industry has been driven to make substantial capital investments in new technologies, such as those to deliver targeted and customized print solutions to integrate effectively its products and services within a multi-channel marketing campaign. In addition, Quad/Graphics believes the commercial print industry has moved towards shorter print runs and increased production efficiency of products with lower page counts and increasing complexity. Finally, Quad/Graphics believes that successful commercial printing companies will invest in finishing and mailing and logistics capabilities to minimize their clients’ total manufacturing cost, which includes mailing and logistics (and is not simply limited to print). For many customers, mailing and distribution represent their largest cost, typically two to three times the cost of their print expense. Therefore, a printer’s ability to impact mailing and distribution expenses through data management and sophisticated, automated manufacturing and finishing equipment is quite valuable to customers.
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Battle of the Magazine Covers: Vogue vs. Harper’s Bazaar

Tue, 23 Feb 2010 15:41:52 -0500

Buy the most recent issues of both Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar, and you'll have a total of 1,000 pages of fabulous spring fashion previews, including the most beautiful photography on the planet and the most lavish ads anywhere.

It's hard to tell which magazine is better than the other because they're both equally savvy, colorful, upbeat, gossipy and fun. But does their expertise in fashion journalism extend to their sense of self-promotion? Do their covers really tell you what's inside? The truth is that, in both cases, the inside is better than the outside.

God knows that they both try hard to have an impact on the newsstand, but the work is formulaic at best, let alone trying to elevate the state of the art like it did for decades at a time. Bazaar is the more cautious of the two with a close-up of old reliable, back-from-the-dog-house Kate Moss. There are only two verbs (out of 32 words) on the cover and every cover line has run before including a litany of buzz words which have been tested 100 times: Exclusive, Best, Special, Win, New, Chic, Cheap, Secrets, Now.

Trouble is that constant overuse of these words is turning them into spam or, as Shape editor-in-chief Valerie Latona calls them, white noise. Bazaar should consider more adventurous images on the cover. A quick flip through yields many exciting pictures, including some cutting edge ones that would certainly appeal to a younger audience and others that would at least give a welcome hint of the great fashion inside.

Also missing on the cover are several articles, which certainly would have newsstand appeal:
1. Paloma Picasso's Moroccan "manse"
2. Eight pages of pictures by the one-and-only Karl Lagerfeld
3. Six pages of the divine Cindy Crawford
4. An interview with Sarah Palin skeptic Katie Couric
I even prefer the inside headline “Step Into Spring: The New Shapes” to the chosen main headline.

With 50 words on the cover, the latest issue of Vogue sports a gold logo. The attention-grabbing image is a very sexy Tina Fey who should do well on the newsstand although she's not a fashion icon. With 10 entry points, Vogue manages to throw out a fairly big net by offering a mix of fashion and serious articles, even a workout “that works.”

Articles inside include interviews with Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geitner and Twilight star Robert Pattinson. However, there is no hint (except in general terms like "visionaries,” "influencers" and "muses") of the fabulous fashion spreads on the inside. Who are the visionaries? Who are the muses? Where were some of these world-class spreads shot? What are the cutting edge fashion themes so beautifully shown inside? And what does '"The Power of Fashion" mean anyway?

With the type covering over 50 percent of the real estate, Bazaar hardly lets the image breathe. Vogue shows more self-assurance and manages almost twice as many words in half the space. This permits the picture to take over the cover as opposed to the other way around. Vogue avoids spam and concentrates on cover lines that project a sense of timing. Everything seems up to date or looking into the future.

Vogue’s best covers have always been the ones with spectacular pictures and a minimum of type. Unfortunately, the era of minimal text is probably over because of the intense competition on the newsstands. I've found that some women's magazine have 100 words on the cover with a dozen cover lines meant to appeal to every reader from the core to the wannabes.

Nevertheless, one can't help longing for the days when Vogue and Bazaar broke ground with every issue and when the true DNA of the two titles was clearly reflected on the covers instead of just inside.

Final grades: Vogue, A-, Harper's Bazaar, B
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Twitterversy Over Publishers Weekly ‘Afro Picks’ Cover

Tue, 15 Dec 2009 12:26:16 -0500

If attention is what it wanted, Publishers Weekly succeeded.

For its December 14 issue cover, the Reed Business Information title used a photo entitled “Pickin’,” shot by photographer Lauren Kelly for a new book by Deborah Willis called, "Posing Beauty: African American Images from the 1890s to the Present." Willis, an African-American, is the head of New York University’s photography and imaging department.

The cover [pictured] caused a firestorm on Twitter. Publishers Weekly senior editor Calvin Reid, who is African-American, chimed in over the magazine’s feed, claiming he and the magazine’s creative director chose the cover photo and wrote the cover line. Here are some of Reid’s tweets:

@PublishersWkly: I admit that I love afro picks! In the 1970s I had many just like them also stuck in my massive afro. . .

@PublishersWkly: . . and it’s a story about ‘picking’ books. I love dumb jokes.

@PublishersWkly: While I respect everyone who may be offended, I think the photo is a delightful and wry expression of historical Afro Americana.

Even Felicia Pride, the cover story’s author, admitted via Twitter that the cover was, well, a bit shocking:

@feliciapride: I too saw PW cover yesterday. Mouth dropped. Still, I hope you can read my article

What do you think? Is the cover offensive? Funny? Outdated? Ignorant? Poorly executed?

Here’s a select sampling of the comments that have flooded Twitter. Feel free to leave your comment directly to this post.
@yasminhamidi: Ya, I'm not feelin this Publishers Weekly 'Afro Picks' cover. Agree that it's 'artful but out of context'

@Gripemaster: Why are we suprised? This is the same mag and editors who couldn't find 1 good novel from a female writer for Top 10 of 2009.

@ChristineTB: Calvin - I owned "Afro Picks" too. But your photo selection, given the current climate which marginalizes AA writers, was poor.

@ActsofFaithblog: Hipster Racism FTW @PublishersWkly #afropw --And when you go under like so many other publications you'll know why. Cheap shots = FAIL!!

@charabbott: Beyond PW's cover (which I found fresh & funny), what's disturbing is the ARTICLE: e.g. less serious black fiction is being pubbed.

@StrachanLit: I find the PW cover to be a clever play on words, but I'm not African American. It seems vaguely wrong--but why?

@MaggieHilliard: The more I look at/learn about the #afropw cover the more I think the image works, but the copy's too glib.

@angel_atee: At first it's like, what the hell? Then you look at all those little fists and you realize what it is-overkill. Art.

@baratunde: #afropw cover about "picking" black books featured actual picks. Coulda been worse. Coulda been cotton.
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Milking the Cover Design ‘Story’

Fri, 11 Dec 2009 09:04:37 -0500

Some publishers are benefiting from a different kind of cover story: the one that tells how the current cover was designed, why it made the cut—and which designs didn’t.

Many publishers aren’t commissioning just one cover per issue anymore. Instead, they invite a mix of designers to take a stab at just one cover, with the intention of publishing the best work while giving the rest air time online or in the pages of the magazine.

Some, like Latina, have benefited financially from it. Its November issue, featuring a split cover run, generated a 6 percent increase in additional issue revenue based on new advertisers. The runner up design, which was originally supposed to appear inside the magazine, ended up becoming an alternate cover. Each designer received an equal amount of front-of-book space to discuss design inspiration.

Others, like East West, have used cover design as an audience development tool. For the relaunch in October, the Asian culture-focused title solicited original artwork submissions from readers, asking them to interpret “the meaning of East West and the merging of cultures.” The he winning design was featured on the cover of the October/November issue, which also included a profile of the designer.

Then there’s New York magazine, which recently asked several graphic designers from around the world to illustrate "00s" (the 2000’s) for its December 14 issue cover. (The cover story is based on the decade drawing to a close.) The magazine opted for two cover designs [pictured]—one for newsstand and one for subscribers—as well as one featured on the magazine page opening the "aughts" section. Those that made it onto the cover, as well as the remaining six that didn’t make the cut, are featured on the table of contents page and make up a slideshow at nymag.com. It shows the final versions as well as the production and design steps.

Design Overload (Do Consumers Really Care?)

In terms of why they executed the multi-design cover: “the topic was so huge and encompassing and exciting; also, the simplicity of the three characters, 00s, is a dream for graphic designers to explore visually. It also felt like a magazine 'event,' exciting for the reader to see so many versions, and worthy of this special issue about the decade,” New York design director Chris Dixon said in an e-mail to FOLIO:.
A New York spokesperson said that traffic numbers for the 00s slideshow haven't been tallied yet, but in general, the traffic to its cover slideshows can vary widely. Nymag.com, which sees about 55 million page views per month, has created cover slideshows that command just several thousand page views, to others, like its Eliot Spitzer cover slideshow, that see close to 50,000 page views.
For those of us in publishing, particularly creative, it’s always a thrill to see some of the ideas that never made it onto the cover, as well as the process behind those that did (if you don’t believe me, check out FOLIO:’s monthly FaceUp column). But are consumers interested in these cover design outtakes?

As we see more editorial focusing on the “behind the scenes” aspect of magazine design, I wonder if it’s losing its punch as an “event” and if it instead is merely becoming a way for publishers to bolster online content and bulk up front of book editorial.
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