Kern Baby Kern

Could be the tides a turning against the crushing wave of generic magazine titles weighing down newsagents shelves at this point in time. There’s a sense that mainstream publishers have over saturated the ‘market’ (ie your local newsstand) with titles that are so formulaic that no one can tell one issue from the next. So it’s nice to see a whole bunch of mags breaking the template and venturing into unfamiliar territory. It’s happening with Men’s titles in the UK at the moment as Jeremy over at MagCulture has touched on recently [magculture.com/blog].
New and existing titles are seeking to innovate rather that imitate. See the newly revamped Esquire [esquire.co.uk], Arena Homme Plus [see boicozine/1079], Man About Town, He [he-magazine.com], Fantastic Man [fantasticmanmagazine.com], Another Man and ShortList. Add to the mix lifestyle titles such as Monocle and a refreshed Wallpaper and much publicised Another Magazine [anothermag.com] putting design at the top of the agenda.

Revamp fever is hitting the states too. The new issue of Tokion (US edition) [tokion.com] is a total refresh, stock, format, typography and all. First impressions are not great. The new masthead is ace, but the cover looks dull. Any illustration or visual ticks are been knocked out of the interior of the magazine, in favour of massive type over full bleed images. The fashion seems to have been pushed to the fore, with well written in-depth articles pushed back. The writing is actually kind of… well, bad…

I mean, never trust a magazine that tells you it’s all about you… cause it won’t be. I mean, Tokion have not been to my house and sat on my couch while I made them a cup of tea. In fact, you get the impression that this is another phase in their recent identity crisis and that they still don’t really know how their readers are. The problem is now they’re making it quite obvious that they’re desperate to find out instead of building on their unique identity within the mag-o-sphere. Still, there’s always room to improve… as long as their new Art Director sorts out that jumbo typography a bit. I mean if you’re going to use a typeface that big on the page, at least kern the thing a bit. Jeez!