Trend: 'You' on the cover

TIME magazine put a reflecting surface in its year-end issue and called 'You' the Person of the Year 2006, but WIRED's new experiment seems to go a step further.

WIRED and Xerox have partnered to launch an integrated marketing program that offers subscribers the chance to receive an issue of the magazine with their own photos on the cover.

The campaign was inspired by WIRED's July cover story on the future of personalization, according to Xerox. The program will be announced in the April issue of WIRED. It is currently being promoted on Wired.com, and subscribers are encouraged to go online and upload a 4×6 photo of themselves. The first 5,000 WIRED subscribers to participate will receive the July issue of the magazine with their image on the cover.

After the first 5,000 subscribers create their personalized cover, consumers (not restricted to WIRED subscribers) will be able to go to the site, where a tool will be provided to create their own WIREDcover. Users will be able to submit a photograph, change the headline and change the color palette. These covers can be printed or emailed, but will not be on the July WIRED cover. So if you want to see yourself on the cover of WIRED and you are a subscriber click here
Read more about the digital printing technology that will produce the personalized colour covers at the Xerox site

Strategy: Magazines Still a Good Investment

When Joe Mansueto purchased Inc. and Fast Company for $32.5 million in 2005, they were two publications long-neglected by their publisher. "The previous owners (Gruner & Jahr) had disinvested in the magazines,” said Mansueto, delivering the morning keynote at the Folio: Publishing Summit in Chicago. “They had lost the trust of the advertisers.”

Despite online competition, magazines still make good investments, said Mansueto. A long-time reader of Inc. and Fast Company, Mansueto, founder of MorningStar, a publicly traded mutual fund and investment information provider, couldn’t resist putting in a bid for the publications when they were put on the market in May 2005.

Enhanced Technology
After winning the auction, Mansueto's strategy was to create an independent publishing company and to invest in technology and online. “Inc., for me, has always been a very powerful magazine,” he said. “I’m a firm believer in the power of capitalism, a free market and entrepreneurship. And Inc. is at the center of this movement.”

Better Paper and Editorial
To strengthen, the Inc. brand, Mansueto invested in better-quality paper stock and increased edit pages 20 percent. He also increased the editorial staff, hiring away Real Simple editor Jane Beretson.

Exciting Design
At Fast Company, Mansueto implemented a more “visually exciting” design featuring a prominent person on every cover. He also transformed the print-heavy brand into a multi-platformed brand focusing on online, events, as well as franchise print issues.

The efforts have paid off. Inc. is the number one business publication and newsstand sales are up 47 percent and Fast Company is the number three business publication with newsstand sales are up 37 percent. Combined Web traffic for the magazines grew 50 percent last year and is expected to grow at least 20 percent this year, Mansueto said. Unique visitors for the sites are up 159 percent.

ORIGINAL ARTICLE SOURCE: Folio: Summit Keynote: Despite Online Competition, Magazines Still a Good Investment

Redesign: TIME Magazine

I am watching out for my copy of TIME this week. With the March 26 issue the magazine has been redesigned in an attempt to attract new readers and keep the older ones.

The redesign was carried out by Pentagram and here are some layout and design changes to expect:

1) Smaller logo: The size of the cover logo has been reduced, a decision that allows for secondary cover lines and images to be run in a row of boxes above the logo.

2) Table of Contents, arranged on a horizontal axis, like a timeline (Spread shown here)

3) Four sections—Briefing, The Well, Life and Arts—sign-posted through the use of bold headlines.

4) The front of book ‘Notebook’ is renamed “Briefing,” and is designed to contain an easily ascertained roundup of the previous week’s events, short news items and the popular Milestones and Verbatim sections.

5) Web connection: Web touts have been embedded throughout the magazine that indicate related content at TIME.com.

6) A cleaner look courtesy of more white space, as well as larger headline text and big bold photographs.

7) A mix of writing styles, from quick-hit bullet points to more contemplative features, to a mix of text and visuals that tell a complete story.

For more background into TIME Redesign, visit the pentagram blog

India: “Boston, not Bangalore” Campaign

America’s IT outsourcing nightmare, Bangalore is once again the target of some adverse publicity as outsourcing becomes a viable option for American media houses.
It's the Boston Globe, not the Bangalore Globe” is the ad campaign launched by the Boston Globe's union against decrying the paper's plan to outsource the jobs of about 50 workers (in the classified advertising department) to India.
Appearing on the radio and in the Boston Herald (The Globe rejected publishing the ad ‘because it did not meet standards’) the Boston Newspaper Guild urges readers and advertisers to call the newspaper and its parent company, The New York Times Co., to oppose the move .

See the pdf of the ad here.

Related story: "India ready for Magazine Design and Production Outsourcing"

LaunchPAD: Better Homes and Gardens

This month one of America’s best known women’s magazine comes to India.
Better Homes and Gardens will be published and marketed in India by Media Transasia India, under an agreement with Meredith Corp.
Priced at Rs 100, this monthly is targeted at the women from 28-40 years of age. The launch is accompanied by extensive advertising across outdoor, print dailies, periodicals, radio, television as well as online. In fact, print ads soliciting subscriptions have been appearing in leading magazines for over two months.

Event: Colophon 2007

The much awaited Colophon 2007, an international magazine symposium curated by Creative Director Jeremy Leslie (London), Writer Andrew Losowsky (Madrid) and Publisher Mike Koedinger (Luxembourg) starts in Luxemburg today.
Five exhibitions on magazine culture will be on view including a visual representation of 10 groundbreaking magazines by the people who make them.
Other highlights:
PORTFOLIO SHOWS is a series of live presentations of artwork in the fields of photography, illustration and editorial graphic design. Each one-hour session allows 10 talents to show samples of their work on a projected screen for a period of 5 minutes.
ROOM WITH A VIEW, a temporary magazine store set up in the stunning “aquarium” of the Casino Luxembourg
Launch of the book WE LOVE MAGAZINES which includes in-depth features on all aspects of magazine creation, a worldwide magazine directory (+ 1,200 titles) and an international guide to distribution.
COLOPHON 2007 is also the world's leading online directory of pop culture magazines. Over 1,300 magazines are listed with factsheets, covers and exclusive interviews, sorted by countries and language. Yes, you can find some Indian Magazines here, in fact 2 have been added by me :)

If like me you love magaines and would love to know more about the event, you can check here for latest updates: MagCulture, Colophon2007

Awards: Pictures of the Year (Magazines)

POYi started as a photographic contest in 1944 in Columbia, Missouri and for over six decades has been a forum to recognize excellence in photojournalism by honoring the photographers, editors and their institutions of employment. It has preserved a visual archive of our shared history.
In 1948, magazine photographers were invited to participate in the contest and since then the Winners gallery is divided into ‘Magazine Division’ and ‘Newspaper/General Division’.

Here are some of the winners of the magazine photo awards:

Magazine Spot News: Dar Yasin, The Associated Press
Yasin is a freelance photographer based in Kashmir, India. He has been recoginsed for his picture depicting ‘Indian paramilitary soldiers carry the body of a police officer killed in a gunfight in Srinagar, India, Thursday, Oct. 5, 2006.
Yasin contributes regularly to Associated Press and Onasia. Yasin's work has been published in Time Magazine, Match du Monde, Der Spiegel, The Telegraph and many leading newspapers and news magazines.
You can view more of his work here

Magazine General News: Q. Sakamaki, Redux for NEWSWEEK
For the series "SRI LANKAN CONFLICT" Funeral workers care for child victims of the Sri Lankan political violence, as the country is at the brink of all-out war.
This series also gets the Magazine General News Reporting Picture Story

Magazine Photographer of the Year: Christopher Anderson, Magnum for Newsweek
For his picture series on Caracas, Beirut, Gaza and Singles










Magazine Portrait: Farah Nosh, Getty Images/ TIME Magazine


For the "AFGHAN STUDENT"















Issue Reporting Story: Jose Cendon, Freelance

For "FEAR IN THE GREAT LAKES"









The judging for the contest is still on, you can view more of the award winning magazine photos as they appear at the poyi website

Media Ads: Tehelka-The People’s Paper

A uniquely Indian campaign featuring a uniquely Indian icon: The omnipresent and much maligned crow!
Shot in black and white, with a small town setting, this commercial shows a political rally spoiled by crows crowing Tehelka’s punchline: “Jhoot bole…Kauwa Kaate”

If like me you do not have a TV, you can download the 15 MB ad here