In Print – Still Demand

For contextual studies research on print, I took myself to the library to see what magazine subscriptions are currently available to borrow. There was such variety; fashion, photography, history, art, engineering, dance, politics… too many subjects to name, actually.

I picked up many magazines and looked through them, trying to gauge their credit and purpose. Here are some of the magazines of interest. I took note of the materials used and the editorial layouts.

Copies of gap PRESS

The magazine gap PRESS – ‘gap’ standing for ‘groupe avant-premiere’ – covers international runway fashion shows and presentations within the fashion industry. On the magazines website, access to digital archives are available for customers who have bought physical copies.

Bilingual contents of gap PRESS

The contents of gap PRESS are all bilingual; in English and Japanese. Real people have gone though with the task of translating the contents, and will have been met with thorough scrutiny before publication. A machine translation we may use online doesn’t compare to a human translation.

ELLE Decoration magazines

I picked up a copy of ELLE Decoration from the racks because a copy had marbled wallpaper featured on the mate cover, and it caught my eye instantly. The size of the magazine – standard –  was big and bright enough to pull me over with an enticing cover alone.

Two-page spread of interior design in ELLE Decoration

The inside of ELLE Decoration is full of photography and large speeds of interiors that have been skilfully paired with fonts and a considered amount of text on each page. The layout has room to breathe.

Two copies of Collezioni Trends Magazine

Collezioni Trends Magazine is published three to four times a year. Collezioni Magazine is a compressive guide to textiles, printed after thorough research, it includes information from international trade shows and exhibitions. The paper was regular weight for a magazine; felt that it could tear easily.

Digital preview of a copy of Collezioni Trends Magazine

Collezioni Trends Magazine is available as a digital preview. I flicked through it online – of course the pages are but a small selection, and out of sequence – the point of the free sample is to expose enough contents to entice newcomer subscribers.

The experience of looking though the sample of the magazine online wasn’t really impactful on my safari browser however. There’s a emulated page-turn animation as I ‘flick through’, but there’s a lack of actual articles to read – here I’m greeted with images only. (Beggars can’t be choosers…)

ImagineFX advertising the sales of its digital magazine

I saw other magazines which promoted the sales of digital editions. I feel that the push of the digital copy sales is simply that; to sell more copies, than to phase out the print editions.

Many of the cheaper magazines had glossy covers, but the usual thiner, duller, recycled paper inside. When the inside of a magazine had some thicker cardboard pull-out of glossy spread inside, it was a surprise and felt like an incentive to buy.

After thinking about the magazines strengths and drawbacks, here are some unbiased pros and cons that I feel the physical magazine possesses:

PROS

• Portability of the magazine – possible to take it about freely
• Possessing a physical copy instills a strong sense of ownership
• Physical characteristics such as paper quality (weight and material) are part of the user’s experience of the item

CONS

• Takes up physical space
• Depending on the content, the item may be a waste of resources
• The printed information within may quickly become outdated or redundant

Of course I could look at the printed magazine and compare it to online counterparts. For example, digital media can often be stored on several devices, and thus essentially be ‘several copies’, but when you buy a physical magazine once, it’s just the one copy. Still, a hardcopy has the benefit of being internet and electricity-free; you can read a magazine without internet access, and it won’t run out of battery, unlike a device.

Seeing all of these magazines in print, I am not convinced that print is dead! There is still high demand for so many magazines of varying subjects and differing demographics, as seen by the racks in the library!