NEW LOOK COVER FOR MEW

I like "heritage media" (Hopper), when it comes to mags - subscriptions for MEW, ME, EIM, Narrow Gauge World and Computer Active. Read very few newspapers these days, just an assortment of various paper's content put on Google.

Note my subscription to MEW/ME/NGW, they are all completely different subjects.I regard EIM as being a mix like ME used to be. Clever marketing to split subject matter of ME as it was. CA is another story and it helps keep me up to speed with what's going on in computer related sphere.

Edited By DMB on 07/07/2022 08:18:18

But are you one of the next generation? Or are you one of the gentlemen of a certain age like most of the rest of us?

Hopper, look at my post 07.44, I forgot to mention that I'm one of the "snow whites", still costing precious Dosh for regular Barber visits. Had an old codgers bus pass for more years than I care to remember!

Edited By DMB on 07/07/2022 08:25:57

It was experimenting with making fishing bits that got me into this game

I think new people can come from almost anywhere, any hobby where making stuff matters

Yep. So our generation loves it's special interest magazines for sure. But not so for the "next generation" of young "makers" grown up in the digital environment. My son probably has not read a book or magazine since he left school. And his kids probably don't know what a magazine is, but can tell you chapter and verse of anything to do with computers and the net.

Neil,

To summarise,

1. Get rid of the awful slippery surface

2. Keep the multi - coloured large bold "Workshop" title as that's what the mag is about.

3. Simplify the cover with one large pic of what you think is the most interesting item inside.

4. Get rid of small font contents list, which is better inside in it's current layout.

5. Have a decent sized issue no. at the top as in the past with the date next to it. Most of us horde back numbers as a reference source and need issue no. or date to find required reference.

Hopper,

Years ago my late wife's work colleague who had a young son at that time who said, "Mum, what's an EP?"

And any other reader young enough to not know, it's Extended Play, referring to a 7" diameter vinyl record, doing 45RPM in a record player, all the rage back in the 50s/60s. Many famous names on them, e.g., The Beatles.

John

I have most volumes of Model Engineer and note all the changes in design, colour or lack of it, size, content etc. Notably, before 2nd WW, large format brown (and I think, some blue colouring) with full page inside photo of a large lathe with the operator sitting on board the saddle. Sort of like those damn great bending rolls (for ships armour plating) just inside the gates of Chatham dockyard. Subject photo changed of course, with each weekly issue. The war years saw their offices burnt out but ME kept going in entirely black and white in miniature format and weekly.

After the war it gradually had a splash of front cover colour on a bigger format and around 1963 a giant format for a short while and propper colour printing, still weekly for sometime. Now down to fortnightly and a smaller size that appears to be a mag industry standard.

Wonder for how long before we're forced to accept digital only?

Edited By DMB on 07/07/2022 09:46:51

DMB,

Wonder for how long before we're forced to accept digital only?

Don't give them ideas!

Peter G. Shaw

Mortons (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mortons_of_Horncastle) appear to focus mainly on print publications and events.

They do have online electronic copies of their magazines but, AFAICS, appear to have little or no online paywall protected sites.

They do have a few blogs eg OnTwoWheels (https://www.o2w.co.uk/), which actually looks OK.

I wonder if the day is nearing where Mortons switch most of their efforts to online publications only, since it is cheaper and quicker to publish with less overheads? As an example, the FT now gets 35% of it's revenue from their online edition (https://innovation.media/insights/the-financial-times-post-print-digital-newsroom-and-mobile-future).

Is the future MEW an online forum plus paywall protected content?

If so, then the magazine 'cover' will change it's nature drastically.

Ches

Surely the cover is eye candy, there to do only one thing, to catch the eye of the casual buyer and hook him or her.

Digital only has to be on the agenda of some newspapers, the cover price of £2.80 a day for the Telegraph makes it too expensive for me. My special offer digital only subscription is only £13 a month at the moment which is about half price I think. They do subscription deals on paper copies but still too much money for me. Anyone with a substantial collection of paper magazines will be aware of the storage issues it brings, I disposed of my collection of motorcycle magazines which took up quite a lot of space in his landrover when the chap collected them. I am adjusting to consuming my media on screen although my MEW subscription is a paper one.

Mike

There is no future in crystal-ball gazing, but special interest niche-publications such as ME and MEW and classic bike mags and the like are among those publications doing best in the age of print decline. Possibly because of the age demographic of their audience in part, possibly because people with a keen interest in a specialist area will spend the money for a print product they can keep as a reference. So it's likely such mags will continue to weather the storm in print, unlike many publications of a more general interest nature such as newspapers, Newsweek magazine etc etc that have shut down or cut back.

Publications such as the FT do well with online editions because they are publications people in business and commerce have to read as part of their job, many of them aspirational young urban professional types who prefer to read on their phone or laptop while commuting or on their computer at work while pretending to be doing something productive. Not the same audience as MEW etc. Plus your FT readers are generally higher income types whom advertisers will pay to target, and whose data possibly harvested by the FT site is quite saleable.

I imagine that within a generation though, digital will be the overwhelming norm as the next generation takes over with new habits from birth in the digital world.

The magazine rack in WH Smith grew larger throughout the 1970s and 80s, perhaps trebling in size. It remains much larger and is not noticeably shrinking yet, we will see how it goes.

Mike

Yet UK magazine sales have declined by 60 per cent since 2005 with many many well established titles closing down. From Newsweek to Marie Claire. Advertising revenues, the lifeblood of publishing in the past, have suffered similarly huge declines.

Edited By Hopper on 07/07/2022 12:40:42

Not sure why people are having a job piling up their mags, I've tossed a few recent glossy ones (ME so got more than MEW) onto the ever increasing pile and not had one move yet. Maybe a bit more attention levelling the pile rather than the Myford

Also not sure about the fixation with the issue number in the corner, ME seems to manage OK without it and there are 4600 to keep track of not 320

Edited By JasonB on 07/07/2022 13:15:36

If anyone wants to pre-order a copy of MEW 318 (perhaps to repeat Jason's stacking experiment) who hasn't got a subscription you may use this link:

classicmagazines.co.uk/issue/mew/source/digital22

Thanks

Neil

The "bleeding" of one colour into another, seems to have a feature of MEW for some time. I rather like it. What I do not like is the header above the magazine title.

Also, if the objective is to attract print buyers, the announcement of content needs to be prominent, akiun to a menu inviting a purchase.

I am not suggesting just a list of contents (That appears inside )

To me the previous way of showing some of the more appealing articles worked best.

Be a little wary of showing young ladies on the cover, no matter hoe flesh they show. A previous editor got a roasting for showing his daughter, as I recall, decorate with tinsel for a Christmas edition.

"Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells" did not approve, but personally, it made little difference to me.

The cover needs to tantalise the prospective reader with what is inside. The magazine will be bought for what bis inside, concerning what can be, is is being done, in workshops,.rather than some flash illustration.

Remember, "If it ain't broke; don't fix it", or not radically!, too rapidly.,

Howard

Credentials: I'm well past my allotted three-score-and-ten years and still remain an incompetent model engineer.

I was an avid read of M.E. for very many years but my commitment & therefore my subscriptions to it declined quickly when it was (foolishly IMHO) decided to launch MEW. The consequential "dilution effect" of informative model engineering articles within one magazine ~ leading to uninteresting space-fillers in both publications ~ at twice original cost ~ lost me as a customer. A return to the pre-split format could be welcome.
In my senility, I am therefore aligned with those above who consider function to be more important than appearance (as with wives?).

MEW 317 carries tributes to Stan Bray who died recently..

He suggested MEW but, like Fowlers Fury (I owe the "Three score years and ten" several years, so we are alike ) the then owners of M E thought that it was a bad idea.

The proof of the pudding seems to be that the initial "Once and once only" special issue had to be reprinted to cope with demand, and now at over 300 issues, says otherwise..

Obviously there is room for both camps.i

Howard