Given that nobody is entirely disappointed or wholeheartedly impressed with Time’s remake, we’ve got the perfect platform to nitpick, as there’s no one obvious error made by Richard Stengel and his design team. (Well, their attempt at wit was pretty glaring.) Which means AdAge’s Nat Ives has ample interview opportunities with print publishing’s finest to give everyone a say in the matter. Like In Touch’s Richard Spencer.
Well, you’ve asked someone who created a very photo-heavy magazine to comment, and I realize the responsibility Time has to the news, but I think any magazine’s redesign should take into consideration that today’s consumer wants something very visual and very immediate. With that said, there are three distinct problems: The cover doesn’t tell me the magazine has been redesigned; the pacing still feels a little slow; and the photos don’t pull me into the stories.
That is: Why put a fake weeping Ronald Reagan on the cover when real weeping Britney Spears pictures are only, like, $5k a pop?
Editorial Director
There is this rampant need to please to the “screenagers” running around our industry, and it was accomplished with the new Time re-design. But doesn’t that put a round peg in a quadrilateral hole. The Wireless generation, doesn’t read newspapers or newsmagazines. Why then create and design a news magazine for them? All the little sound bite design elements are cute, but they didn’t have enough substance to go the last furlong. I think it reduces the value of the proposition. If we accept the oblivious position that there is no such thing as a news magazine anymore, then what you are left with is at best an analysis magazine. Did they succeed? Only Time will tell. (Pun Indended)
How about Newsweek..?
Problem with this analysis is that folks with a vested interest are making it..
Where will Media Guy be if magazines don’t survive?
Where indeed?
“It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it”
- Upton Sinclar