textile magazines

Here are some of my observations, after reading my last Textile magazines I have bought this month. What do you guys think, do you have similar peeves....?? With magazines becoming more and more expensive, I do think that they should get a right.....LOL

Starting with Spin Off. I wanted to let everyone know that Meg Swansen has published the Opinionated Knitter: Elizabeth Zimmermann Newsletter

1958 1968. As always there are lots of great articles about spinning as well as knitting. This is one of the magazines I really like. It is well laid out, and easy to read, with good articles.

Threads magazine, I used to subscribe to and cancelled their subscription when they focused on sewing only Now I will buy the odd copy if I finds something interesting they have to share. Low and behold, like so many magazines think they have to do, they have changed their layout of the magazine. God forbid we stick with what works. Now you have a hard time diferenciating between aricles and adds. I still think that they share lots of great ideas. Handwoven went throught that same need of changing the looks of the magazine and it drives me crazy.

Many of the knitting magazines, suffer from the same illment. With knitting It also helps when they do not let you flip the pages back and forth to read a pattern, e.g. explanations are in the back or the front, away from the pictures and the gauge informations. I take paper and pencil and rewrite what I want to knit so I have it all in one spot. This flipping back and forth is really a problem when the pattern is complicated. One pattern should be all written at once. Handwoven used to have a picture of the item with part of the explanations, and the rest was in a worksheets at the end of the magazine, all chopped up. Some years ago they did change that and that was a great impovement for me.

What do you think am I alone in this

Els

Reply to
Els van Dam
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no, Els, sweetie, you are NOT alone! Noreen

Reply to
The YarnWright

Nope ur not alone...i rewrite the pattern too......big enough see i can see it!! i subscribed to anna about 4 months ago....and I'm very disappointed...it ain't what it use to be....(you don't mean the same to me) opps.....a little rock n roll!!! Maggie, madly knitting in the sonoran desert...........

Reply to
Maggie

Definitely not alone, Els. I feel that, if I am paying good money for the magazine, it should be properly laid out. While I have problems with ads, I can accept that they are necessary. Just don't plunk them in the middle of my pattern!

Katherine

Reply to
Katherine

DITO ,,,,, i feel robbed of my reading it easily mirjam

Reply to
Mirjam Bruck-Cohen

Yes. It's one of the reasons I don't subscribe, I just buy the occasional magazine on the newsstand.

I got it. I like it, but it's big, almost a coffee table book, and it's big in two dimensions, so it isn't quite the same shape as my other big knitting books.

It usually happens when they get a new editor. Some editors think they have to make changes to prove they are doing something. Also, there are fashions in magazine layout. Part of the problem is that the all-together method, which works so well for using the pattern, seems to be very hard to set up when they plan the magazine. (I don't know why the cut-in-pieces method would be easier.)

I think they want to prevent people from just taking the mgazine apart to store the different patterns in different places. But even some hardcover knitting books split half the directions away from the photos. I think it's because when most people flip through a book or magazine, they want to see pictures of the projects quickly; pages of small print aren't immediately attractive enough cause an impulse buy. Things that lead to impulse buys aren't the same as things that lead to really making the items.

I think they should do their market research on people who actually knit, but let's face it, their job is to sell the magazine, and if only

2 percent of buyers ever knit anything, they don't care - until the magazine folds because the fad passes.

I agree, that is bad, and it's something that tabloids do all the time. But on the other hand, a pattern that says "you must use X brand yarn" is essentially an ad for the yarn. And a "pattern" that is just a picture and the address to send for the pattern is just an ad as far as I am concerned, even if it's a free pattern; they get your address that way.

Not at all alone. I join the chorus here.

=Tamar

Reply to
Richard Eney

I was wondering about it, to bad it is so big, that again does not make it handy to take with you on trips or meetings.

Yes Tamar, I agree with you, it is often when editors change that they start all these changes. I do not mind the change, although when a layout works well, why change it. I do mind when it becomes a mess. The lay out artist and the other people working on it see at as a piece of art versus a working aid. I worked in the advertising industry and have often looked over their shoulder when they were at work. It has very little to do with who reads the magazine but more with the artsy look it has. Me and my big mouth, never sat back, but always made a very clear the were not doing their readers any favours. Must be said that most magazine have a very hard time of it, indeed it is not the subscribers who carry a magazine, it are the adds that do so. So often you do get, what is called advertorials in the industry. Yarn brands are named in a pattern, or in the editorial special articles and items are named, or recommended, all hidden ads. I guess we can't win them all. This I do not subscribe but buy from a news stand, and look first before i buy.

Els

Reply to
Els van Dam

Part of those `separating photos frompatterns is due to Printing requests. Book /mags are printed 2 or 4 on one plate that is than folded and cut into 4 different pages, the other side also has to be done in 2-4 pages ,,,, for example , try to make a little book with page numbers , than open it up once upway , lets say your little booklet has pages 2-7, now unfold as suggested ... you will see that pages 2 & 7 are next to each other while 3& 6 who are also next to each other are in fact `standing on their head` towards 2 & 7 , now if you want a colored page , it will be cheaper to do all the colored ones in this group of 3, 6 , 2 , 7 rather than devidedit between those and the other side of the big sheet that is 1 & 8 . 5&4 .... This is mostly the technical reason , Having almost. I hate all those advertising pages and think they take too much bulk. Unlike many of you i have no chance of seeing those mags in the shops , so either i subscribe or don`t have anything. I am quite unhappy with changings happening, In Dutch mags we there w was Ariadne { the publisher was my Opa`s brother], A wonderful hand craft mag , but ever since it was sold, it became a `styling` mag with `some` 1,2 3 easy crafts ,,, Every time when i am in Belgium i look at it , but don`t find it interesting enough to buy, i rather prefer buying `1001 Idee` or `Anna `, thus i keep some subscriptions for fun and learning new techniques and keep my mind in the contemporary. mirjam

Reply to
Mirjam Bruck-Cohen

Mirjam, it is sad sometimes when times change that the changes to magazines are so poorly done, as is the case with Ariadne. Recently someone gave me a whole stack of the new ones and indeed it is now a magazine that is popular for everyone, and in reality it has become very supervisial. However I must say that Handwerken Zonder Grenzen has changed for the better. It was run by a couple, both very knowledgeble and well trained in textiles. Because it was run by just two people it tended to become somewhat onesided, although I always thought they did not do a bad job. Since they have retired and the magazine was bought by a larger publishing company, there are many more people involved with the magazine, and it has improved greatly I find. What there was not before was advertising, it is there now. It does not bother me at all, since the ads all relate to textiles anyway and come in handy at times

Also printing is now done much more sophisticated than when it was done decades ago, as a matter of fact, sitext an Israely company is part and parcel of that new process. All the old Heidleberg printers have gone by the wayside.

Els

Reply to
Els van Dam

Reply to
Mieke

Hi Els,

You are not alone in this. I have the same problem however if I need the whole thing together I copy all the parts of the pattern and cut and paste it so I have the whole thing together in no time. Great article about magazines my friend, Mieke

Reply to
Mieke

Years ago I observed this with magazines and newspapers in general... "continued on page such-and-sjch", occasionally a second "continued on..." message was atached to that little section. To me that seems like poor organizational and communication skills. Sloppy.

David

This

Reply to
David R. Sky

Reply to
David R. Sky

As i produced my catalog i spent a long time in the printing house , and asked a zillion questions ,.,,,, quite a lesson. mirjam

Reply to
Mirjam Bruck-Cohen

Mieke great surprise.....you found your way.....

When I bought the last Thread it was with an eye on a couple of articles. When I sat down with it, I was dissapointed in their new layout and found it hard to make a difference between article and ad. Drive my crazy. The last Spin off is great from front to back. Hope they stick with their set up

I am off the a Guild meeting this morning, and the sun is shining here after a couple of days rain,

talk to you later today

Love

Els

Reply to
Els van Dam
[snip]

We're pretty lucky in the UK then. In most knitting or similar magazines, we have the whole pattern together - possibly with adverts near by, but you don't have to flick to the end. Some of the other European magazines have the photos in one place and the instructions as an insert.

Even non-craft magazines have the whole of the article together: I find it odd when reading American magazines that they only have the start of the article at the beginning, and all the ends together at the back.

Reply to
Penny Gaines

DO i guess right Elsje , and this friend Mieke also speaks Dutch ??? Let`s try it ?? DAG MIEKE mirjam

Reply to
Mirjam Bruck-Cohen

Mirjam, is this is indeed my very best weaving friend from Toronto, Yes she is Dutch Canadian. Mieke kind, we gaan nu over naar Dutch.....Dag Mieke.....

lachen

Els

Translations for all the rest of you. I wrote:...." Mieke, we are now going over to Dutch, goodbye ....LOL"

Els

Reply to
Els van Dam

Reply to
Mirjam Bruck-Cohen

Dag Mieke, Nog een groet in het Nederlands.

Yes, I am back :-)

Ria

Reply to
Ria

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