Jan 12, 2010

Magazines Suffer

Yes, there are exceptions, more or less: Oprah’s O and People and a few others that have presented at least some resistance to the worst of the economic trends in publishing. But it is as if the gross downturn of revenues has not only dampened prospects, it has dampened creativity.

What are the trends in magazine content and design today? To this trained eye the principal “trend” is a disappointingly unimaginative and repetitive execution of what we’ve seen before and for quite a while. To sum it up: “same old same old.”

This is particularly true of travel-oriented content. Is anyone doing anything particularly interesting or particularly new? No, and certainly not the major players. Condé Nast Traveler continues to be the class of the American field, presenting material which is always well-executed in terms of both text and design. However, they fall back on issues that are transparently invitations to potential advertisers: “The Hot List,” “The Gold List,” “The Top 100.” No intelligent or sophisticated reader who isn’t a true travel junkie can get from one end of these features to the other without the eyes glazing over and completely forgetting the ludicrous little icons that pepper ever entry and its score.

For a magazine such as Travel + Leisure, which is so generally regarded as important, it is startlingly unlush. Quite simply, they could use Oprah’s far better and more tasteful designers to present a subject that should be irresistibly lush, provocative and inviting. It’s travel, for heaven’s sake! One of the most thrilling experiences that life offers!

Lists are a bane. “57 This,” “62 That,” “110 the Other.” Glance at a kiosk and the scourge of numbers will beset you immediately. As if sheer volume were a guarantee of success. It isn’t. Why not do one thing well, or five at most, I’d ask since this has always informed the magazines I’ve created and edited?

Titles that are more narrowly focused, such as a Caribbean Travel & Life, tend to be more successful, in my opinion, because they have to work harder. They have to focus stories in ways that the Lazy Lists don’t. But this is not a trend; it is a status quo.

Interestingly, Lonely Planet Magazine, impressively larger and heftier than most other newsstand titles, does at least some things right. Big, luscious photographs, pages that aren’t densely crowded at every turn, and savvy story execution are all characteristics of this hard-working and unpretentious magazine. It’s the way magazines used to be before falling advertising thinned them out, and their editors compensated by packing yet more in, and then even more, in a desperate hope to cast the widest net for readers. And thus have they become a jumble of unsegregated information that as often repels the eye as draws it.

I have said 10,000 times, “A great magazine is a great companion.” Think of what you want in a companion, and particularly a traveling companion: someone bright, someone resourceful, someone open to experience and amply possessed of his or her own, someone willing to share, someone curious, someone energetic, and those just for starters. Someone possessing and expressing that greatest of life’s virtues: joie de vivre. “Joy in living!”

Magazines that have that have personality. And personality is what people tend to love, ideally, but certainly be drawn to. Vanity Fair, The Atlantic in its aggressive current form, New York magazine, The New York Times Magazine when it isn’t taking itself too seriously are four that come immediately to mind.

To magazine editors generally I’d say, “You have nothing to lose, really. So why don’t you try to be those great companions that people cleave to and cherish?”

Posted By: Duncan Christy