John Walters had an eye for Eye…

The news from across the pond that the editor of Eye magazine is now the owner of the magazine. Haymarket Media Group announced their decision to release ownership of Eye magazine to its editor since 1999 John Walters. John and two of the magazine founders Simon Esterson (Eye’s art director) and Hannah Tyson (business director at Esterson Associates) have formed Eye Magazine Ltd. a new company that will continue to publish one of the best graphic design magazines any side of the Atlantic …
What caught my attention is that those three people embodied for me the true passion found in individuals and the way they interact with the products they create. It is what I call the passion of publishing formula: you dream it, you launch it, you love it and you buy it.
Haymarket Media Group may have lost Eye, but the aforementioned trio together with thousands of graphic designers around the world gained a highly prized magazine that will continue to land on their door steps once every quarter.
Best of luck and keep up the great work. I will continue to keep an eye on Eye!

Monocle: Mr. Magazine’s™ Notable International Launch of the Year + An interview with Tyler Brule

If you were told in March 2007 that there is a brand new magazine with a hefty cover price, ads from Gucci, malo, Cartier, PRADA, Audi and Boss to name a few, and no celebrities on the cover or inside, yes no celebrities but rather lengthy in-depth articles about serious issues, great photography and is mainly printed on matte paper with a Manga magazine insert, your answer would have been, “What have you been drinking?” Well, Tyler Brule was probably drinking that Clear Canadian water at the home of his aunt Anita in Toronto 33 years ago. He is the editor-in-chief and chairman of Monocle the magazine that defines itself as “A briefing on global affairs, business, culture & design.” Brule who started Wallpaper* magazine in 1996 in the UK, two years after he arrived there from Canada, outlined the vision, mission and unique selling features of Monocle in its first issue. Monocle will be “A smart, forward looking, single edition global briefing for a highly mobile, international audience,” Brule wrote.
His 10 points outline of the business plan of the magazine was also published in that March 2007 issue. Brule and his team decided the magazine should:

1. Be a complete media brand with print, web and broadcast components
2. Deliver across all these areas in new formats
3. Focus on global affairs, business, culture, design and the best products/services on the market
4. Be an oasis from celebrities and low production values
5. Champion fresh talent for both words and pictures
6. Look ahead, not chase the ambulance
7. Accept no freebies
8. Likewise, not be given away for free
9. Open bureaux, so we have our own people on the ground
10. Do our bit to raise the bar

A year later Monocle has been slowly but surely delivering on its 10 points promise and delivering well. While newspapers are closing overseas offices and trimming staff, Monocle is adding offices and expanding its staff on the different continents of the world. Brule continues to show the world that, on one hand, print is well, alive and kicking and on the other hand innovation in print is needed more today than ever. Monocle earned our first ever title of International Notable Launch of the Year. We asked Tyler Brule seven questions (the same questions we will be asking all the 30 notable launches of 2007). What follows are the Qs and As with Brule via e-mail:

1.What do you consider the single most important achievement your magazine has accomplished in today’s marketplace?

IT’S TRICKY TO SINGLE OUT JUST ONE BREAKTHROUGH. WE’VE DEMONSTRATED THAT FORMAT (TRIM SIZE, PAPER STOCK) IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN EVER IN A DIGITAL AGE. AT THE SAME TIME WE’VE CHALLENGED THE SUBSCRIPTION MODEL AND CONVINCED READERS TO PAY MORE FOR QUALITY – MONOCLE’S SUBSCRIPTION IS 50% HIGHER THAN ITS COVER PRICE.

2.Looking back, what was the most important hurdle you were able to overcome?

CONVINCING LUXURY GOODS ADVERTISERS TO LOVE MATTE PAPER RATHER THAN GLOSS.

3.What was the most pleasant surprise?

THAT GERMANY BECAME OUR THIRD BIGGEST MARKET.

4.What is the biggest challenge you are facing today?

MANAGING NEWSSTANDS IN OVER 40 KEY MARKETS.

5. Imagine you have a magic wand and you can strike the magazine and make it human? Describe that human being.

MONOCLE WOULD BE THAT RARE PERSON YOU END UP SITTING NEXT TO ON A LONG HAUL FLIGHT WHO’S SO INFORMED, WITTY, HANDSOME AND CHARMING THAT YOU NEVER WANT THE FLIGHT TO END.

6. The number of new magazine launches has been on a steady increase. What advice do you offer to someone wanting to start a new magazine?

DO A VERY CONSERVATIVE BUSINESS PLAN AND THEN ADD 50% WHEN YOU LOOK FOR YOUR FUNDING.

7. Finish this sentence: in 2011 your magazine will be…

AN ADJECTIVE FOR QUALITY.

Congratulations to Tyler Brule and the team at Monocle from the entire staff at MrMagazine™. We will be publishing the answers to our seven questions with the 30 most notable launches of 2007 starting tomorrow and for the next two weeks. On April 5 we will announce our Most Notable Launch of Year in the United State from the list of the 30 notable launches. Stay tuned.

Innovation in Print (3): Monocle’s First Anniversary: Make ours an analogue

The first anniversary issue of Monocle is starting to make its ways to our shores. The magazine, launched by Tyler Brule last year in the UK, answers a very important question regarding the future of ink on paper and the role the digital revolution is playing both positive and negative. Brule answers the question he has been asked too often since he launched Monocle, “Why we decided to so something in print rather than an exclusively digital venture?” His answer, “We’ve developed a brand that employs both formats and uses them to the best of their abilities. Paper and ink for pictures and words, the web for audio and video.” Brule added, “I think it’s more a case of media owners forgetting how to innovate with paper, and the web has provided a perfect excuse for a market that’s been stagnating for far too long.”
Well this issue of Monocle, like the previous ten, is a perfect example of innovation with paper. Check the cover story on digital photography and check the pictures in Monocle and compare them to other magazines. When Brule promises a “briefing on global affairs, business, culture & design,” he delivers. Check the magazine out here or get your copy from a newsstand near you. It is worth the $10.00. I paid 12 euros (almost $19) in Amsterdam to buy this issue. It is worth it.

Innovation in Print (2): A Hole (with purpose) in the Romanian Esquire

I have no doubt that you are familiar with all the perfume and cologne strips in most magazines. Those samples, loved by some and hated by others, have been a fixture in the magazine business for some time. So, when the folks at the Romanian edition of Esquire magazine decided to offer a sample of BVLGARI inside their March 08 magazine, they literally did that. They dug a hole in the magazine (from page to page) in the shape and size of the cologne bottle they wanted to offer their readers. The bottle was nestled inside the hole in the magazine and all the pages of the magazine had to be designed taking into consideration the design of the bottle. An insert extending beyond the magazine regular size announced the free gift to the readers. See the cover above and some sample pages below.

Print and the Stock Market: the Wrong Comparison

I love British newspapers and all the innovation taking place across the pond. That is no secret, but when I read a blog on The Guardian web site by Roy Greenslade I was surprised, to say the least, not by his blog, but by the comments of one smart reader responding to his blog. Mr. Greeslade repeated on his blog on Thursday March 13 the same arguments I have been hearing from all the prophets of doom and gloom about the demise of print and print companies because their stock market prices are going down. He wrote

I am often accused of taking too negative a view of the future of newspapers. One commenter this week said I should stick up for our own trade instead of appearing to relish its death. But, as I said in response, I am merely recording what is happening and, based on that reality, predicting what will happen. In the face of the depressing truth, even if I was to “talk up” newspapers, it wouldn’t make a blind bit of difference.

At the risk of repeating that overworked phrase - it’s the economy, stupid - I base my views on the flight of advertising revenue and declines in circulation, another revenue drain. Investors, needless to say, are doing the same. So let’s take a look at some up-to-date facts from across the developed world that illustrate the parlous state of newspaper publishing.

I’ll start with the media sector on the British stock market. Shares in the Daily Mail & General Trust, publisher of two national titles that are regarded as the nation’s most successful papers of the past two decades, go on falling week by week. The Daily Mail ‘A’ ordinary share price today stands at 435p, down from its 52-week high of 875p, a decline of more than 50%.

To read the rest of his blog click here.

One reader responded to the Mr. Greenslade blog by writing:

Using newspaper company share prices - and therefore investor confidence - as a proxy for long-term structural fortunes is an interesting approach. But given that Google’s share price is also down almost 50% from its 52-week high, doesn’t your method imply that Google is facing a comparable fundamental structural challenge? Not that I mean to dispute your conclusion - newspapers in many markets clearly are facing the sort of challenges you describe. But I’m not sure investor confidence is a good measure for that, given that the same thing is also going on with the share price of the main winner from the shift of attention, and therefore ad revenues, to the web.

Need I comment? I don’t think so. However, what surprised me even more came from Mr. Greensdale himself the next day. In his Friday’s March 14 blog he describes his journey into the heart of Rupert Murdoch’s new print heaven. Mr. Greensdale wrote

For once the word “awesome” is justified. It is, without any shade of doubt, the most amazing newspaper publishing factory I’ve seen since I started in the business on a weekly in 1963.
Superlatives fail. It is the biggest, most efficient, least labour-intensive press plant in the world.

To read his record of the visit click here. What a difference one day makes…

Innovation in Print (1): COLORS is Back with a Vengeance

On a recent trip to Amsterdam I picked up the latest issue of COLORS magazine, the United Colors of Benetton magazine. Issue number 73 of the magazine that I cherished every issue of its first few years of existence. It was the example I gave in class for innovation, content, design, you name it. And, as is with a lot of great creative magazines, the magazine fell on hard times and was reduced to yet another printed publication. Well, starting with issue 72, innovation is back, and is back with a vengeance. The last two issues remind me so much of the early issue of COLORS the magazine that set a new standard of innovation in print. Issue 72 was dedicated to a world with color. The theme of the issue was Without Colors. A Braille cover on a white background adorned the front of the magazine with another cover on the back in black and white. A CD with audio readings of the entire magazine was enclosed with the magazine.
Issue 73 on the other hand was dedicated to Money. Back are the double covers, different size magazines, great use of multiple photography and of course, excellent use of design.
If you have not seen COLORS in some time, or if you have given up on the magazine, like I did, I invite you to take a look at some of the sample pages from issue 73 (below) and the covers of issues 72 and 73 (above). Trust me, you will not regret picking it up again.

The Best Use of “Christmas” in a Magazine…

New Statesman magazine bills itself “Britain’s award-winning current affairs weekly,” and keeping with current affairs this week’s issue celebrates Christmas and the New Year in a very special way. The magazine offers “100 pages of the finest writing…” inside this end-of-the-year issue. Included in the issue is more than one defense of the use of the terms Merry Christmas and Happy Christmas rather than the so-called politically correct Happy Holidays. What caught my attention was the essay by Richard Dawkins, the Oxford University professor and self professed atheist and author of The God Delusion book. He writes,

“For better or worse, ours is historically a Christian culture, and children who grow up ignorant of biblical literature are diminished, unable to take literary allusions, actually impoverished. I am no lover of Christianity, and I loathe the annual orgy of waste and reckless reciprocal spending, but I must say I’d rather wish you ‘Happy Christmas’ than ‘Happy Holiday Season.”

New Statesman magazine is filled with Christmas essays, fiction, quizzes and awards. Very well done and best usage of the word Christmas that I have seen in a long long time…

And for those of us who celebrate the birth of Jesus, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Lessons we can learn from Finland (take two)…

There is nothing new about using an extra flap on the cover to create space for more cover lines and at the same time be able to use the back of the flap to sell some extra advertisement. The New Yorker has been doing that for years and so is the new Condé Nast Portfolio. However, while in Finland I picked up a magazine called In Look and it did not have one flap but rather three. They added three layers of flaps over the cover making space not for one ad but for three in addition to that of the inside back cover. As you can see from the pictures below the first flap covers one fourth of the cover, the second one half and the third three quarters of the cover. A nice way, indeed a very nice and creative way to add more space for advertising in your magazine that is both attractive to both customers: the advertiser and the reader. (If you look hard at the main cover you can see the edge of the flaps).

Is HELLO! testing the waters for a USA launch?

In the midst of the gossip weeklies raising their cover prices (In Touch and Life & Style from $1.99 to $2.99, and US from $3.49 to $3.99) the British import HELLO! is just doing the opposite by decreasing its American cover price from $6.95 to $4.99. This is the second time the British magazine seems to test the waters for a launch in the USA. Back in the late 80s HELLO! ran a full page ad in The New York Times offering a free sample issue of the magazine. Based on the response to that ad, the powers at HELLO! opted not to launch the magazine in the USA. But now, with OK doing better than expected and the gossip market still going strong, it looks as if HELLO! is testing the USA waters one more time. The magazine that had a limited distribution in the USA is now more widely distributed with an added yellow circle promoting the new reduced American price. Is the USA ready to welcome HELLO!? Wait and see is the name of the game for now. Keep your greetings and enjoy the British editions for now…

Lessons we can learn from Finland…

I just came back from a week’s visit to Helsinki where I was conducting seminars and workshops with the staff of several magazines published by Sanoma Magazines Finland. One magazine stopped me in my tracks: Aku Ankka, which simply means Donald Duck. The weekly magazine has a circulation of over 320,000 and a readership of over one million in a country of five million. It is the best known media brand in Finland and is read by almost one fifth of the population. What stopped me more than the statistics is the cover price. The magazine sells normally for two Euros, but when they have any special supplement or extra pages they cross the two Euros and have a big star burst with the higher cover price of two fifty…yes, they highlight the higher cover price. Talk about dedicated readership. Just the opposite of what we do in the States where we highlight the lower cover prices not the higher. Another surprise with Aku Ankka is the ads the magazine carries: automotive, yes automotive. Just look at the picture of the back cover above. So, the first lesson I have learned from Finland on this trip is very simple: create an addictive content for a magazine, even a comic magazine, and people will pay for the content. It is the content that people pay for and the more you give them the more they will pay. If you are in the business of selling content you do not have to fear raising your cover price.