Where knitting and magazine design meet

In my grad school program I have been required to spend a decent amount of time analyzing magazines—layout, editorial, design, advertising, etc. And when a magazine goes through a redesign there is even more fodder for analysis. I must say, I enjoy this sort of pondering. Do regular people care why a magazine was redesigned? Not really. They just want the columnist/comic strip/designer they know and love to still be around after the logo turns upside down and the text layout moves from two columns to three. And maybe they want it to look good too. But who cares about the reasoning behind the changes?

Well, I care. Or at least I wonder. Why redesign? What is it going to accomplish for the magazine? 

Of course I'm thinking of Interweave Knits. What are they thinking? I don't mean that in a "What the f*** are they thinking?!?!" sort of way. I mean it 100 times more nicely than that. Because I got the spring issue in the mail yesterday and if you've seen it in person, you know: Big changes! Some of them good, some of them "meh," some of them… um, well, I'm not sure yet. Where to begin?

What follows is my review of the redesign of Interweave (the magazine, not the patterns. But the patterns are gorgeous, no? I'll save that for another entry). I know writing a review like this is not my normal MO, but maybe I'm thinking about changing that? Maybe…

2007, 2006, 2003. The 2006 design goes back through 2004. Looks like they redesign every 3 years or so. If they're even on a schedule.

The cover. They redesigned the logo, got rid of that solid colored box in the upper left hand corner, and seem to be playing with typographic variation in the cover lines. Clean, simple, and though I wouldn't say it's necessarily a great improvement over the previous cover design, it looks pretty. They seem to be going for a more designer, artsy look. Facing out among all the other (mostly ugly) knitting magazine on a newsstand, it will stand out. Although, in my opinion, it stood out before. So why this change? It is subtle, but perhaps it represents heightened design standards? This would make sense – the knitters I know aren't looking for another chunky, anyone-can-knit! sweater pattern. We want style and creativity and I think the editors get that – and maybe they always got that on some level. Also, perhaps this cover standing out will will help increase newsstand sales, which I'm 100% in favor of. More money for IK means (I hope) an increase in resources for hiring the best designers and potential boosts in production quality. Not that these things were ever a problem before, but there is always room for more, better, blah blah blah.

The pattern presentation. Uh oh – has IK gone the way of Vogue Knitting?

One of my complaints about Vogue knitting is the way their patterns are all in the back of the magazine and the pictures are all in the middle in a sort of "fashion spread." Not only is it preferable to have a picture of what you're knitting right next to the pattern (duh), it is also nice to have each pattern separated out so they aren't competing for space on the same page. It seems to me that VK sets a certain number of pages to fit the pattern instructions into, and then they cram them in, often at the sake of pattern quality. I can't tell you how many times I've knit a VK pattern and found astounding mistakes, lacks of charts where—dear God—there should have been charts (!), patterns that seem to end when there clearly should be more information, etc, etc, etc. 

So now Interweave Knits is set up this way – with all the pictures of the knits in one section of the magazine and the patterns following in another. I recoiled the moment I saw this change. But then I looked more closely. They do include decent, albeit small, pictures with the patterns. They also give each pattern enough space to adequately layout all the instructions. I like having all the instructions. They tell me how to make an entire garment, not 85% of one (oh, have I been burned by VK). However, I'm not sure about the photo spread – seems busy and reminds me of knitting ads that look like they might be part of the content and offer a pattern to go with the picture, and then I'm disappointed when that is not the case. But, something this kind of spread has going for it is that one can see all the patterns without flipping through the entire magazine. In that way, I think it's great. I admit with the old IK design it was a pain in the neck to have to flip 3-5 pages to see a picture of the next design.

Other internal design things. They seem to have simplified things a bit. I like the new running heads along the upper outside edges; this makes it easy to flip through and see where the written content and patterns are. 

The advertising. Ok, this doesn't really have much to do with a redesign (though it does a little – they have to make space for it), but doesn't it seem like there are more ads? I haven't physically compared the # of ad pages in this issue to a past issue, I'm just going off being a longtime reader and observing the magazine getting thicker. This doesn't bother me at all – in fact, I think it's a good thing for a niche audience like us knitters. We want to know about new yarn shops and manufacturers. The advertising in a magazine like IK is like bonus content in some cases, wouldn't you say?

Website. In Pam Allen's editorial, she mentions that Interweave is hooking up with Knitting Daily to provide "everyone" with a whole bunch of free content. I haven't checked this out very much yet, but it's at least a good idea and could be cool.

That's is it for Mayarn's review of the Interweave Knits Redesign of 2007. For now. This is just one of those things I like to nerd-out about, so I wouldn't be surprised if I blog about it again. Not only because I like to nerd-out about magazines, but also because I have semi-seriously entertained the idea of trying to work at Interweave Press. I know – that probably shocked you so much you fell out of your chair. What knitter WOULDN'T love to work there? But I've been thinking about this a while. I would love to combine so many of my interests into one job and, aside from doing my own freelancing thing, Interweave Press seems like it could be a great place to do that, don't you think?

Comments

[maryse]

interesting analysis. really. i'm not being snarky at all. what are you studying in school?

i love magazines myself and always have from the time my mother used to put a stack of them in my playpen and i used to look at the glossy pages.

i'm looking forward to getting my copy.

[ahhh barrie]

oh god i could talk forever about well-designed magazines. in fact...

you gravitate toward something that is asethically appealing, and if the publisher can't take the time to make their magazine look pretty then what the fuck does that say about the knitting patterns inside (or any other material inside).

case in point. entertainment weekly years ago. it was all i could ask for. good content. didn't follow People or OK or US. it was different because it wasn't focused on gossip and fashion. then i started noticing slight changes in the design about a year ago. then they even fired joel stein and replaced him with stephen king (not a fan). it actually pissed me off to the point of not continuing my subscription. and for a good reason - now that it's been redesigned completely (even though still mild to any one else who might not notice these things) i can see the difference. it's turned into something completely different for me and i don't depend on it as much as i used to. call me a rag snob, but i too like a well-designed magazine.

[Ashley]

I'm just glad they got rid of that red-headed model. She was quite cute but the clothes just never hung right on her, so everything ended up looking frumpy and dumpy.

Gah! The patterns are lovely! I especially like the knitted lingerie.

[frecklegirl jess]

I am a little bummed that they moved the organization of the magazine around- not that I have seen it yet. I kinda liked the way they did it before with the big picture right next to the pattern. hmmm.

[Stacey]

My only complaint, considering I don't pay that much attention to details, is that the patterns aren't next to the pictures. I need that. If I am making something I constantly look at the picture to see if it's going the way it's supposed to. Now I'm going to have to bookmark the page or something :)

[Cecilia]

I just got that Lily Allen CD. Love it. Love it. Love it. She reminds me of Nelly McKay.

[melissa]

i happened to catch a glance of the new IK last weekend and was a little disappointed by the new project layout. i agree totally that the project spread does look like those pattern advertisements you see around sometimes. i think it really cheapened the beautiful designs in the issue a bit. layout and graphics are everything!

[jessie]

I'm actually commenting not because of your IK review (which I did enjoy) but to say that your comment on A Case of Fiber Fever ("You really take care of yourselves") was hysterical in a sad-but-true way.

Youth. Wasted on the young.

And: Men can be so dumb.

[carrie m]

i loved your review!
i'm disappointed by the redesign. i thought the old design set interweave apart, made it stand out from other magazines. each pattern gets its day (or pages) in the sun without the distraction of other patterns and ads. i honestly couldn't tell the difference between many of the ads and patterns. i also loved the uniformity of the old design. oh well!

[erica]

What I miss most are the different perspectives of a particular garment interspersed with the pattern. I thought the new design looked nice at first but the full page images of the garments are gone. They've definitely redesigned every three years it seems.

[jodi]

I miss the redheaded model, I think she was gorgeous and the photo stylists did her wrong by always frumping her up. It was a goal of mine to design something that would look incredible and sexy on her; now what'll I do?

Oh yeah, we were talking about the redesign. I don't like the new cover, somehow the old logo typeface and the little solid block in the corner said "hand crafted" to me whereas the enlarged "K" and "S" and the diminished "interweave". . . I don't know how to articulate it. It's just a little too slick and designey by comparision.

[polarbears]

I agree with Carrie M and all the folks who've commented around the blogosphere that the new layout makes it hard to distinguish between the ads and the patterns. I really didn't catch a couple of things until the second or third time I read through it. I like to see the pattern, big pictures (including the back and any special features) and easy to find info about gauge and fiber right away without having to hunt for it. I also didn't find anything I'd want to knit, but that's not unusual for a spring or summer issue, unfortunately. Guess I'll reserve judgment until I see the fall selection.

[Kate]

I had mixed feelings about the redesign, most of which you mentioned here. The only thing that really bothered me was the new pattern layout - I never liked the setup in VK, and was disappointed that IK had changed theirs as well. It's interesting to see how they've evolved over the years though.

[Jen]

Hi, I'm speaking to something near and dear to my heart, because I'm a magazine art director so design is my bread and butter, so to speak. Personally and professionally, as a knitter and an art director, I think this design is a vast improvement over the last. I'll list a few things that strike my eye, and a few things that are weak - not to criticize anyone, just as a callout about what works and what doesn't.

What works:
- The overall feel is more sophisticated and it feels like there is more content in the same number of pages. This is a neat trick for any magazine designer to accomplish.
- The models are more realistic in size, shape and representation of the audience.
- Typography is more clear.
- Patterns are in a more logical form. Whether they are close to the photos or not, they are a lot easier to read and follow.

What doesn't work:
- Weak covers. The magazine doesn't need to shoot for glamour or the "party in the front, business in the back" mess of VK. I would like to see them experiment with bolder typefaces and stronger accent colors. Also, more tags would help - I don't get only calling out three articles. But at least they got rid of the tagline technique that made me think the model was Veronik Avery.
- Uneven pacing. I am not at all sure how many pages of filler I'm going to get between content pages.
- Weak continuity devices. As somebody said earlier, it's often difficult to tell where ads end and patterns begin, especially on 1/4 page ads. They could more clearly mark off ad space.
- Poor model posing. This is the art director's responsibility, believe it or not. I've heard complaints about things as simple as 'why is the model holding the hem? is it fitted badly?' - but that's a huge deal. In a magazine where the finished photo is all we have, the models need to be told to keep their hands off the knitting so we can see it. That's very difficult to do - most models are very self-conscious about their hands.

All in all, I think it's a very successful redesign and I enjoyed reading your comments. The only other thing I can say is that good design evolves over time to present the content in a way that is meaningful to the audience. Deadlines, last-minute changes and printer error are also a reality, and new designs usually get up to full speed a couple of issues into production. I'm looking forward to seeing where they go with it!

Sorry to go on so long, gosh, I wrote a book. :)

[xtina]

I was so stoked to see this post on the redesign! I've been wondering why I hadn't heard much about it, particularly since it started last issue.

[Stef]

I agree with Jodi-- the new title leaves much to be desired. First, it carries less visual weight, especially with the larger K. It looks a little bit generic, as if someone made this cover as a Powerpoint slide.

The depreciation of "Interweave" in the title is rather confounding to me. There have been many magazines with names like "Knitting", "Knitters'", et cetera. From three feet away, the new cover looks like a new entry to the market that has simply been named "Knits". Interweave is an established high-quality brand, and they should be flaunting that name on the newsstand.

This post may not be your usual MO, but I really enjoyed it. ^__^