By James Wallace Harris, Monday, July 6, 2015
I find it almost impossible to read the print edition of Wired magazine. Ditto for Vanity Fair. The emerging trends in magazine graphic design keeps me from reading my favorite magazines printed on paper. Why? Is it because I’m too old to appreciate modern layouts? Are my eyes too ancient to see their tiny typefaces? Is my brain too slow to comprehend their fire hose content? Have I been corrupted by reading on the web or tablet computers? I’m sure all of those things are true, but, could their graphic design be flawed? Have we pushed beyond the limits of Gutenberg?
The Atlantic and Harper’s offer the most comfortable reading for me. The New York Review of Books and The New Yorker are in the middle of my comfort zone. If you study the design of the six magazines I’ve mentioned so far, there’s an obvious pattern. The harder to read magazines have more areas on the page vying for my attention. If a two-page layout has ten things shouting at my eyeballs I just turn the page. The two NY titles are pretty good at displaying reading content, but their ads are very distracting. The New York Review of Books is printed in large format making it hard to hold. And I hate to say it, but The New Yorker cartoons distract me.
In many ways, all these magazines are easier to read from the web or tablets. It seems print magazines are trying to compete with digital layouts and they’re ruining print aesthetics. The web and tablets offer flexible font sizing that help readers, but print magazines keep making their text smaller. New layout techniques on tablets offer even better reading experiences by providing modes to separate words from images. I now prefer to read Wired or Vanity Fair on my iPad.
Reading on the web has several advantages over print and tablet. I can clip articles to Evernote, or save them to Instapaper. I can email articles to friends. I can highlight and copy content to my blog. I can follow their hyperlinks. Plus, I don’t end up with piles of paper to recycle. And of course, web editions are free.
The print edition of Wired is beautiful—but busy. I’m sure the editors find their large layout boards easy to study, and feel their content outstanding and obvious. However, when it’s all squeezed down to the size of the printed page, the content looks like information overload puked onto paper.
I’m quite honest when I ask, “Does anyone read the print edition of Wired magazine?” Yes, it has a stunning layout. And it has an amazing array of trendy new ideas presented in innovative visual ways. I enjoy flipping through the pages, and gazing at bits of things, but I can’t read it.
Are the days of printed periodicals over?
JWH
Auxiliary Memory 
My son is the editor of a niche magazine with both print and online versions. They manage to make money. The subscriptions usually go to professional accountants and many like the print version for office visit customers. (My own CPA subscribes.)
I see lots of print versions of magazines in professional offices, my doc gets Web MD, for one -heh.
Then there are airports where there are lots of magazines available in the newsstands, including Wired and Mac/PC stuff.
I think the days of the print magazine are not over yet, we may even see a small resurgence. I used to get the NY Times but they messed up my password (long ago) so I’ve been pissed off at them. lol – I’d be interested in getting The Economist (UK) online.
When I’m waiting at the dentist or doctor I read my smartphone.
And I’m likely on my iPad. lol