Let’s Get Small
Posted on August 7, 2009 – 12:05 AM | by OldManFoster
Finally.
We’ve been talking about changing Midtown Monthly to a standard size magazine format pretty much since the day we took over. We inherited the big ‘Superman vs. Muhammad Ali’ size from the original publishers who had designed Midtown Monthly to be about half the size of a newspaper page, newspapers being, not-so-coincidentally, their core business. As we scrambled to learn the day-in, day-out routine of publishing a magazine we realized that any reformatting plans would have to be put off for another day while we learned the ropes. Over two years later, that day is here.
While the larger format had some benefits (BIG cover photos, and the ability to put way too much information on any given page) it had drawbacks as well- portability, for one. Given that nearly every copy of the Monthly is picked up by someone who is out doing something, the fact that MidMo had to be folded in half to fit anywhere but the back of a large pickup truck was kind of a bummer. I’ve seen copies of Popular Mechanics that survived the Korean War looking better than an old copy of Midtown Monthly that was carried through Midtown on a bicycle. Cost was a factor too. Since we printed a non-standard size, we paid a non-standard price. Once we crunched the numbers we realized that by making the magazine a little bit smaller we could afford to print more pages- a direct application of the old ‘Less is More’ concept.
Regular readers of this magazine will notice that in addition to the new size, we’ve also introduced a new layout design. The improved design is cleaner, brighter, and, we think, easier to read. In response to reader comments, we did away with the colored background pages that sometimes made for challenging reading- especially in the dim light of a café. Credit for the new design goes to the hardest-working man in graphic design, our new and ambitious Art Director, Aaron Winters. Some of you may be familiar with Aaron from his excellent art publication, Exit Strategy, and his work with many local bands and arts groups.
I hope you enjoy the new issue- please let us know what you think.