Monocle’s November issue has a cover story (subscription only) about the future of print media.
Tyler Brule’s magazine selected only a few newspapers.
One of them is Expresso from Portugal, which was also included as a trendy paper in the inaugural issue of the magazine.
In their own words:
“Less text, more information” was the principle behind the 2006 redesign of the Portuguese weekly.
“We wanted to cut the fat out, make it leaner,” explains the editor, Henrique Monteiro.
“We had the professional audience but we wanted to attract younger people.”
Pairing up with Javier Errea from media consultants Innovation, Monteiro made the switch from broadsheet to colour Berliner format.
Mário Feliciano, a Portuguese typographer, delivered fonts inspired by 18th-century Iberian text.
Bullet points, fact boxes and small Q&As now sit next to more white space to help readers digest the big stories.
As a result, 25-34-year-olds have replaced 45-54-year-olds as the core demographic.
Female readers are up from 42 to 48 per cent, while circulation has risen 9 per cent in the past year to 130,000.
(Thanks to Gabriel Sama)
While other publications are killing foreign bureaus, Monocle adds a new one in Sydney.
Tyler Brule’s magazine now has offices in New York, Tokyo and Zurich.
Last week I got the September issue.
An excellent one.
More interesting than ever.
Quality journalism sells.
I got the last issue of Monocle in the mail today.
210 pages with a lot of “caviar journalism.”
This magazine is becoming like a sushi publication.
The 5th issue (July-August 2007) ranks the World’s Top 20 Most Liveable Cities.
With Munich, Germany as the best.
As a Catalan, I will dispute that Madrid deserves the 10th position while Barcelona is only 13th, but this is not mathematics.
There are many great stories:
One about The Perfect High Street with a selection of the ideal stores that you and I would like to have just around the corner.
From an Apple store to a Danish Emmerys deli.
And another one about City Slickers, with the best in urban design.
From the Tokyo police boxes to the Athens cinemas.
I don’t know about circulation figures, but the only thing that matters to me is that as soon as I open the envelope, I sit, I read, I enjoy and I start to count the days until I get the next issue.
My renewal is going to be easy.
