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Portfolio.com Launched with the Premiere Issue

Wallpaper* May 2007

The Biggest Launch of the Year, Also the Quietest

Folio
Thursday, April 05, 2007
By Marrecca Fiore

The long-awaited new business magazine from Conde Nast hits newsstands in the center of the consumer magazine universe (also known as New York City) Monday, April 16 and will debut nationwide on Tuesday, April 24.

But what the new magazine will look like and the nature of its content is still a mystery.

Billed as a business publication with big, bold articles and dynamic visuals, Portfolio (http://www.portfolio.com/) is not only the biggest launch of the year, it’s also the most mysterious. What is this magazine all about? Who will it compete with? Conde Nast is mum.

Despite the big bankroll (sources say close to $100 million is being spent on the launch) and brand recognition that comes with being a Conde Nast brand, there’s been no fanfare surrounding this launch. The marketing strategy is extremely low-key. There’s no grandiose launch party planned, just a small party for staffers to celebrate the first issue. And the Web site is nondescript, carrying just a handful of stories, available only to subscribers of the magazine. Even a Yahoo search for the publication using the keywords “portfolio” and “magazine” brings the Web site up in a disappointing 8th place. 

Why so quiet? “I do make the assumption that it’s a deliberate marketing effort to build interest in the magazine,” said publishing consultant and blogger Paul Conley. “Perhaps, it’s an unusual way to build interest. But it’s worked in some ways.”

Conley’s right. The magazine has got people talking and newspapers, magazines and bloggers are pouncing on even smallest tidbit of information to trickle out of 4 Times Square. "Have you heard about the latest hire?"

Here’s what we do know about Portfolio:

·  Though the first issue will debut this month, the second issue will not come out until September.

·  It will open with a ratebase of 300,000. The ratebase will increase to 350,000 in September.

·  A new and presumably better Web site will launch the same day that the magazine hits newsstands.

Added Portfolio spokeswoman Naomi Starkman, “Portfolio promises to deliver engaging and in-depth investigative business journalism. Business is exciting and fun, as business journalism should be. The content will be bold, informative, and thoughtful and the visuals dynamic. The magazine will investigate important business trends, profile industry leaders, and report breaking news that matters.”

Samir Husni, chairman of the Department of Journalism at the University of Mississippi, said Conde Nast used a similar strategy when it launched Domino in 2005. “They really don’t need to generate any buzz because the audience they intend to reach, they’ve already reached through direct mail and they’ve run focus groups,” he said. “Because they are releasing one issue and waiting, they’ll have four months to build on the momentum before the second magazine comes out.”

Here Comes the Firing Squad

The magazine itself may be a mystery, but one thing is for sure, everyone will be gunning for Portfolio when it launches. “It’s just the mere idea that a major company is launching a major magazine that has everyone getting their firing squads out,” said Husni. “They’re setting themselves up for major scrutiny from the media industry.”

Conley said it’s not enough for Conde Nast to release a  high-quality magazine, the concept needs to be different. “It’s a vicious business,” he said. “It’s not like 20 or 30 years ago when there were a handful of unbeatable titles like Forbes and Fortune and Businessweek. There are a lot of titles competing in the same space and some have closed. But I don’t think Conde Nast makes the assumption that they’re going to pull readers away from existing books. I think that they think there’s a new market out there and that’s what they’re trying to capture.”

Preparing for Portfolio

Business magazines may not admit it, but most have been gearing up for the launch of Portfolio. In recent months, new editors have been hired at Fortune (which is rumored to be working on a redesign) and Newsweek, and Forbes is said to be contemplating the launch of new women’s business magazine or supplement.

And Portfolio has prepared for its competitors, hiring away seasoned journalists from publications like the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Fortune and Time.

Fast Company also has a new editor. Bob Safien, the former number two editor at Fortune, became the publication’s editor and managing director in February. “Any business magazine that says they’re not paying attention to the launch of Portfolio is lying,” said Safien. “I’m eager to see what Portfolio has in it. And my first issue comes out at the same time and at the same time as the Fortune 500. So I’m putting a little more attention into my cover and the content, but as far as specific programs tied to the launch, we don’t have any. We might be looking at the way we market online and do things a little differently but that probably would have happened anyways.”

Will It Make Money?

Husni said he’s received a sneak peak of the new book and it hearkens back to the days when magazine stories were more narrative and photography was brilliant. “It’s like with the revamping of Time, people are finally starting to understand that the culture of magazines has changed,” he said. "I hear people say, ‘Remember the great photography in Fortune?’” he said. “You look at it now and where is the photography. This is about good narrative and good photographs and leaving the newsier stuff to the Web.”

Even so, business magazines collectively took the biggest hit in 2006 in ad pages and revenues, according to PIB figures, with 10 of the 12 major business magazines suffering declines.

Another industry insider, who has been following the launch of Portfolio, said he expects strong content from the magazine, but isn’t sure if the revenue is out there to support it. “I’m sure it will be an extremely high quality magazine and a good read,” the source said. “I will be astounded if it ever makes a dime.”

Conley said Conde Nast would do well to target a demographic not presently served by business magazines. “It could be aimed at a much younger audience,” he said. “All the books out there are aimed a baby boomers and tend to serve a male audience, although I think Money targets a married couples, so perhaps they’re aiming at a more female audience. It’s hard to say because we haven’t seen the book. But I don’t think Conde Nast is saying, we’re going to take a few hundred thousand subscribers from Businessweek and a few hundred thousand from Forbes and that’s how we’ll make our audience.”

Strong Web Presence

It’s important to have a strong Web presence in the magazine industry, but Conley said it would not have served Portfolio well to come out with a big, bold Web site in advance of the magazine. “I don’t think the Web was the appropriate place for them to build hype,” he added. “Obviously they’ll need something complementary and something substantial in a Web site. But they’ll have the same problems that everyone is having in that there’s so much content out there, it’s hard to keep track of everything. So they’ll launch them both simultaneously and we’ll see if one or both will succeed or fail.”

Scientific American

April 2007
English
88 Pages
PDF - 7.74MB (Download)

Time Inc. Closes Down Life Magazine

Ends weekly supplement after two and one half years

Media Life
By Toni Fitzgerald
Mar 26, 2007

Life magazine was the great creation of Time Inc. founder Henry Luce, and the dream of its revival lingered in the halls of the Time-Life building for years after its first death in 1972 as one of America's most successful mass-market weeklies.

In October 2004 Life resumed publishing as a weekly, this time as a supplement inserted in newspapers around the country on Fridays, aiming to catch readers before they headed out for their weekend shopping.

It was a grand idea, and it reached some 13 million readers, but Life never caught with advertisers, and early this morning Time Inc. made official what many in media had been anticipating for some time: Life is closing, this time presumably for good.

In a statement this morning announcing the closing, Time Inc. Chairman, CEO Ann Moore is quoted as saying:

"Life magazine was a truly innovative publishing venture. It was developed, edited and published by some of the best talent in the business and we can remain proud of its many achievements. But sometimes we have to make tough calls, and this was one.”

Says Moore: “Growth requires taking risks and the potential upside was huge, but unfortunately the timing worked against us. The market has moved dramatically since October 2004 and it is no longer appropriate to continue publication of Life as a newspaper supplement."

Life will live on on the internet as a photo portal, housing a collection of 10 million images assembled over the years.

Life ended 2006 with 395.53 ad pages, up 5.5 percent over 2005, but pages this year took a tumble, falling by more than 20 percent by February versus the first two months of 2006, amid more and more rumors that it would soon close.

Life has a circulation of 13,381,344 and is inserted in more than 100 newspapers. The last issue will be dated April 20.

The Life relaunch offered advertisers the promise of a high-quality weekend magazine, one coming out on Fridays, which in theory would make a more effective ad vehicle that the Sunday titles Parade and USA Weekend, which arrive in Sunday papers.

But from the first media buyers were doubtful. They didn't see any real need for another weekend title, and they were far less optimistic that the revived title could hook newspaper readers. While Life was an important magazine in its time, it had folded well before a lot of readers were born.

In a Media Life story in late 2005, Serge Del Grosso, executive vice president and director of media planning at Lowe New York, summed up the sentiments of a number of media buyers.

"The big challenge was how did Life, which is such an old and established media brand, connect relevantly to today’s media marketplace. [Advertisers] are not going to support Life if it does not drive response. That’s business.”

He noted that Life had struggled to bring in advertisers. "Between Parade and USA Weekend basically fighting it out in the marketplace for their share of dollars going into the genre, Life had a hard time gaining traction.”

More sources:

Time Inc. to Close LIFE Magazine Newspaper Supplement
Time Inc. Kills Life, Again
Time Inc. to End Life Magazine But Keep It Online
Time Inc. to Close Life

MCC source:

Classic LIFE Magazine Covers

Magazine Rack: Mean

MediaPost
by Larry Dobrow
Tuesday, March 20, 2007

CALLING A MAGAZINE MEAN is asking for trouble. The word has plenty o' definitions ("nothing in this universe means more to me than my 4.6 readers," "my mean monthly income would make me a very wealthy man if I lived among the Yup'ik Eskimos," etc.), but the one that most people are going to latch onto is "hateful."

Mean isn't "mean" in any sense of the word. In fact, the March/April issue offers plenty of clever and airy fare, its hipster pretensions notwithstanding. My problem with the publication may be precisely that: Tonally, it's a bit too welcoming, especially given the cultural-influencer 'tude it frequently affects.

Mean rarely ventures into the realm of the critical, preferring instead to let entertainment-world personalities speak for themselves. So when the mag highlights an "edgy" quote like "I'm an ass-kicking nerd!," it comes across as more desperate than caustic. An editor's-note quote from an Iggy & The Stooges song? Ooh, fierce!

I'll say this: Mean looks as striking as any title on the newsstand, with imaginative photography and high-end production values to spare. Take the elegant Samuel L. Jackson/Christina Ricci spread, which features the most immaculately airbrushed armpit in the history of modern publishing, or the shots of Jennifer Love Hewitt look-alike Mary Elizabeth Winstead frolicking in the forest. All artful, all good.

But while Mean might resemble an uber-sleek cultural journal in its design, it sure reads an awful lot like Entertainment Weekly. The main concern? Its choice of story subjects.

The folks behind "Black Snake Moan" and "Reno 911!" haven't been shy about promotion in recent weeks, so the mag's by-the-book interviews with them fall short of illuminating. Ditto for the sit-downs with Rainn Wilson, Paolo Nutini and David Lynch, all of whom are totally psyched (in the most jaded, artistic way, of course) to talk about their latest endeavors and not much else. Supposedly above-the-fray publications usually pride themselves on digging a whole lot deeper.

Mean also seems to have downed whatever magical potion Yoko Ono's record-label publicist has been pushing, as the March/April issue features yet another revisionist take, probably the 25th I've read in the last month, on the "musical legacy" of Ms. Lennon. Like everybody else, the mag presents a case that she was ahead of her time. News flash: No, she wasn't. Her music has always sounded and will always sound like the agonized shrieks of a recently de-tusked walrus. Enough.

More troubling is Mean's refusal to do a whole lot with the individuals on hand. Q&As, as anyone who has ever assembled one knows, are easy; they're the editorial equivalent of a peanut butter sandwich. Mean, however, presents Q&As and not much else, which suggests either a profound lazy streak or a stubborn refusal to consider the possibility that its readers want a bit more in the way of insight.

This sounds dopey coming from a guy who writes "mean" things on a regular basis, but I went into today's exercise wanting to like Mean. I loved Movieline during its Joe Queenan/Lawrence Grobel glory era; everything I'd heard about Mean suggested that it was a worthy heir to that wit/wisdom throne. Judging from the March/April issue, Mean has a long way to go before it can be mentioned in such lofty company.

MAG STATS
Published by: Kashy Khaledi Media
Frequency: Bimonthly, it appears. Anyone?
Web site: http://www.meanmag.net/

This Month: Texas Monthly

Issue: January 2007
Frequency: Monthly
Launched: 1973
Circ: 300,000
Editor: Evan Smith
Publisher: Emmis Communications
Art Director: T.J. Tucker
Photo Editor: Leslie Baldwin
Photo Illustrator: Darren Braun
Photograph: AP/Charles Dharapak

Every January, Texas Monthly publishes its annual "Bum Steer Awards," an issue saluting the actions of the past year's most bizarre, funny, idiotic and endearing Texans (or those who bumbled in Texas) who made headlines. The January cover usually showcases the "Bum Steer of the Year," and for 2006, editor Evan Smith knew that no other incident had been talked about more than Dick Cheney, who accidentally shot a 78-year-old attorney while quail hunting last year. It was Smith who came up with the idea to put a spin the famed 1973 National Lampoon cover which featured a gun barrel pressed against a dog's head with a coverline reading, "If You Don't Buy This Magazine, We'll Kill This Dog." It was that cover that inspired the coverline "If You Don't Buy this Magazine, Dick Cheney Will Shoot You in the Face."

Art Director T.J. Tucker wanted to keep Dick Cheney looking like Dick Cheney, rather than turning him into some kind of character. "We could have done something more obvious-put him in camouflage gear or make him look like Elmer Fudd but I wanted this to be the Vice President as the Vice President," says Tucker. "I wanted it to feel like you're in your living room, watching TV, the doorbell rings, you open the door, and there's Dick Cheney with a shotgun."

The majority of the cover was created by Tucker and his staff, except the image of Cheney's face, which was something photo editor Leslie Baldwin found. Photo illustrator Darren Braun created sketches based on three different photographs. From there, the remainder of the cover was pieced together one element at a time.

"Great cover!  Break the copy with "the Face" at the bottom right, but not essential."
-Thoralf Tollefsen, Northstar Travel Media

"Didn't Texas Monthly do this idea with Ann Richards about 10 years ago?"
-Criswell Lappin, Metropolis Magazine

"I love the concept and the photo illustration is wonderful but they have gone too far by also attempting to copy the Lampoon cover's layout, right down to the light blue logo. The one exception is covering up the logo with Cheney's head, which makes the magazine appear to be called "BUM STEERS!" due to the unusually large skyline where one expects the logo. I do not care for the placement of the cover story headline on the lower right corner. This headline would be much more effective centered up under his hands where it could relate better to the subject."
-Bryan Canniff, Bryan Canniff Designs

2007 FAME Award Winners!

Time Style & Design

by Larry Dobrow
MediaPost
Thursday, March 1, 2007

WHILE PAGING THROUGH TIME, I often think to myself, "Hmm, I'm really enjoying the dispatches from Damascus, but what really makes this magazine sing is its trimonthly style and design coverage." Remember the story about that fashion guy, the one with the hair? Or the piece about that mega-nouveau house of the future, with the solarium and the translucent sinks and the carbon-neutral bidet and the rec room?

Of course you don't, because you no more read Time for such effluvia than you do Vogue for its foreign-affairs exposition or Architectural Digest for Joel Stein's peppy wit. And thus the new issue of Time Style & Design arrives with the deck stacked against it. Just who is this magazine for?

Even if you can somehow get past the misguidedness of diluting the iconic Time brand by haphazardly slapping it on a breezy fashion/design publication, the execution is clumsy at best. The Spring issue boasts cover models with magic-marker eyebrows. It plugs ostrich- and cobra-skin handbags. It waxes philosophic about the "icon" that is a Rolex watch and the "artifact" that is a ballet slipper. I'm guessing that Henry What's-His-Face would not have approved of a Time-branded title that opines, in its editor's note, "For spring you may already know that silver is ubiquitous in handbags and shoes and that the silhouette veers between a replicant look best realized by Nicolas Ghesquière at Balenciaga and an overtly romantic vision put forth by Alexander McQueen."

The thought process here seems to be that there exists an audience thirsting for content that meets at the intersection of news and style/design, and that potential is realized in a single story (about an apparel manufacturer pledging to pay its every employee a living wage). But beyond that, Time Style & Design chronicles home automation, eco-aware beauty companies and the leasing of high-end cars/gowns/artwork as if they are brand-spanking-new trends and/or entities. Even worse is the cover-touted "What's Next Now" hodgepodge of items about "bleak chic" and tanzanite ("the next hot rock"), which is buttressed by a Glamour-lite spring fashion showcase and a spread on silver-hued accessories, most of which look like they were spray-painted.

The mag makes some interesting layout decisions, like cramming eight white "Right This Minute" products onto 80 percent of a page and devoting the other 20 percent to an orange sidebar of "Verbatim" quotes (oh, Karl Lagerfeld, you're such a bitch). As part of its attempt to geographically diversify the look at sneakers for city folk, it identifies Vans as indigenous to Atlanta. And I don't quite understand the mag's predilection for highlighting the dopiest and least memorable lines from its stories as pull quotes ("Whatever the cosmetics industry is doing to reduce its environmental impact is welcome," "There seems to be a return to the special -- pieces that are desirable because they are beautiful and well made").

Yeah, launching a new magazine brand is hard. But if you have any kind of fondness or respect for Time Inc., you should be saddened that the company has wasted the still-strong Time brand on the kind of editorial lark that Time Style & Design represents. If you work for one of the other Time Inc. publications gutted over the last year by layoffs, you should be appalled that resources were expended on it. God forbid the time and money should instead have been devoted to something that could blossom editorially and financially, like a coherent Web strategy.

But never mind all that. Time Inc. made its hay in print, so that's reason enough to keep the print brand extensions coming. Advertisers cannot subsist another day without the opportunity to hawk their tchotchkes in Fortune Home, Real Simple Health & Fitness and Short, Old People. Go, you plucky opportunists, go.

MAG STATS
Published by: Time Inc.
Frequency: Quarterly

Larry Dobrow (larry@mediapost.com) is a Contributing Writer.

Hachette Axes Another U.S. Title: 'Premiere'

Like 'ElleGirl,' Brand Will Continue Online

By Nat Ives
Adage.com
Published: March 05, 2007

Hachette Filipacchi Media U.S. pulled the plug on Premiere magazine today, announcing that the April issue will be its last. The company said, as it has in recent closures such as Elle Girl and Shock, that the brand will continue to live online.
The magazine will exist only on the web.

More to come?
It's the first big magazine shutdown of 2007, but if the recent pace is anything to go by, there will be plenty more to come. In addition to Elle Girl and Shock, magazines that closed print editions last year include Teen People, the U.S. edition of FHM, Budget Living, Cargo, Weekend, Shop Etc., For Me, Celebrity Living and Shape en Espanol.

Peter Herbst, editor in chief, is leaving the company; Paul J. Turcotte, VP-publisher of Premiere and Sound & Vision, will continue at Hachette in a yet-to-be-identified capacity.

Premiere's paid circulation has declined slowly over the years, from an average of 616,089 in 1995 to 492,498 in the second half of last year, according to Harrington Associates and the Audit Bureau of Circulations. Even more ominous, Premiere sold 24.7% fewer ad pages in 2006 than it did the year before, according to the Publishers Information Bureau. Titles and websites focused on celebrity gossip, meanwhile, have continued to gain circulation, making it difficult for older entertainment brands.

'Consistent'
Hachette positioned the decision as a bid give the Premiere brand a strong position going forward. "This step is consistent with our strategy to examine our portfolio of brands to determine the best business plan for each based on its category and the marketplace," Jack Kliger, president-CEO, said in a statement.

"In a transition like this, which is propelled by changes in consumer behavior and the marketplace, it is unfortunate that the necessary adjustments include the discontinuation of the magazine and that some of our valued associates will be leaving the company," Mr. Kliger added.

Premiere.com and Premiere Mobile will expand quickly to serve consumers more daily Hollywood news, interviews and reviews, the company said. The decision does not affect international editions of Premiere.

MPA Digital Awards Winners

Source: MPA

The inaugural MPA Digital Awards were presented at the "Magazines 24/7: Connecting with the Consumer" digital summit on Ferbuary 27, 2006. The MPA Digital Awards honor the excellence and innovation of magazine brands on digital platforms.

WEBSITE OF THE YEAR
Business/News
Fashion
Entertainment/Celebrity
Sports/Enthusiast
Service/Lifestyle

MAGAZINE BLOG OF THE YEAR
BEST ONLINE VIDEO OR VIDEO SERIES
BEST PODCAST OR PODCAST SERIES
BEST MOBILE STRATEGY
BEST ONLINE COMMUNITY
BEST WEB-ONLY TOOL

DOWNLOAD the presentation: Digital Awards 07 (PPT, 13.30MB)
***********************************************************
 
WEBSITE OF THE YEAR
The "Website of the Year" category recognizes excellence and innovation in content, design, functionality and usability in five sub-categories: Business/News, Fashion, Entertainment/Celebrity, Sports/Enthusiast and Service/Lifestyle.
 
Business/News

Winner:            
TIME.com
TIME.com broke news stories throughout the year and users in 2006 were up 90% year-over-year.

2nd Place:         
BusinessWeek.com
At BusinessWeek Online, users find eight channels replete with trusted information and resources to help manage their personal and professional lives.

3rd Place (tie):   
Forbes.com
Forbes.com reaches the largest number of C-level executives -- its target audience -- of any business site on the web, and has expanded the editorial reach of the company four-fold.

Technology Review
Updated daily, TechnologyReview.com provides ahead-of-the-curve coverage on what's next in technology and business.

Fashion

Winner:            
InStyle.com
This site allows users to see their favorite stars on the red carpet, learn who designed their outfits and then browse for details and click-to-buy on hundreds of trendsetting clothing items and accessories that were featured.

2nd Place:         
Brides.com
Aggregating the content from Brides, Modern Bride and Elegant Bride, Brides.com provides the bride-to-be with one site where she can gather ideas, get planning advice, share tips with other brides in the online community, access a variety of wedding planning tools, and get valuable local resources.

3rd Place:         
Style.com
The online home of Vogue and W, Style.com combines appropriate material drawn from its source titles with high-quality original content that is specifically written and designed for the web.

Check the full list

The Magazine: 15 years in 70 covers

COLORS Magazine

1991. 1. It's a baby! (Editor: Tibor Kalman)
The birth of a baby girl represented the launching of the new magazine on the editorial panorama. The image, taken by Oliviero Toscani, had already been used for a Benetton advertising campaign and in this sense it also defined the novelty of the experiment: a magazine that, as it describes itself in the first editorial, is founded on a simple idea – diversity is good – "borrowed" from the Benetton advertising campaigns.

1993. 4. Race (Editor: Tibor Kalman)
The fourth issue of COLORS was also the first monothematic issue, a formula that continues today. And the theme could be no other than Race, in the singular of course. Because there is only one race, the human race. An issue that faces the theme of racism in a different, ironic way. But the British, despite their proverbial sense of humor, were angered to see a black Queen Elizabeth.

1994. 7. AIDS (Editor: Tibor Kalman)
For the first time the problem of AIDS was tackled clearly and directly, discrediting prejudices and spreading accurate information on prevention, without being alarmist and with a little irony (like the article about latex fashion). The issue ends with an editorial in which the image of US President Ronald Reagan, victim of the virus, is accompanied by a eulogy for the man he could have been if he had acted differently towards AIDS.

1996. 13. No Words (Editor: Tibor Kalman)
Tibor Kalman's last issue, a magazine without words and a tribute to the visual vocation of COLORS.

1997. 21. Smoking (Editor: Oliviero Toscani)
An issue all about smoking, in its different aspects: economic, social and religious. And inside a pitiful Playboy-style pin-up showing all the damage that smoking can do to the human body. A document that the World Health Organization still uses for its anti-smoking campaigns.

1998. 28. Touch (Editor: Oliviero Toscani)
The image of a gay kiss introduces the issue on Touch, the most direct way in which people relate to one another. The issue shows that there are cultural differences and taboos relating to touch.

1999. 31. Water (Editor: Oliviero Toscani)
The cover image shows a little boy urinating to celebrate the vitality of water. It was considered pornographic in Switzerland. The commission in charge of inspecting editorial products ordered that all copies of COLORS be removed from newsstands or wrapped in plastic like pornographic material.

2000. 36. Monoculture (Editor: Oliviero Toscani)
A cover that almost made itself. A reject from a series of photos taken years before by Oliviero Toscani for a campaign promoting the UNHCR (United Nations High Commission for Refugees), representing a bloodstain and that had unexpectedly taken on the shape of Mickey Mouse. What other image could so powerfully have represented the threat of widespread monoculture that COLORS attempts to counteract?

2000. 38/39. Extra/Ordinary fashion (Editor: Oliviero Toscani)
An unusual cover. A fashion photo taken by Patrick Demarchelier for a double issue about fashion. It was also Oliviero Toscani's last issue. But it wasn't a contradiction of the magazine's core values (no news, no fashion, no famous people) rather an anthropological and visual trip through different ways people dress around the world.

2001. 41. Refugees (Creative Director: Fernando Gutierrez)
The issue that launched the new course of COLORS, entirely dedicated to a refugee camp in Tanzania, and produced with the support of the UNHCR. Every photo was taken especially for the issue by the COLORS editorial team and Fernando Gutiérrez gave the magazine a new look. It was the beginning of a series on "communities". The cover is an original illustration by a refugee who was asked to draw the typical traits of the two peoples at war, Hutu and Tutsi.

2002. 47. Madness (Creative Directors: Adam Broomberg and Oliver Chanarin)
A self-portrait by a patient from the Camaguey Psychiatric Hospital in Cuba is the cover for an issue about Madness. Includes reports from different countries about the living conditions of people with a mental illness. From Belgium where psychiatric patients are housed with regular families, to the Ivory Coast where they’re chained to trees like animals and abandoned outside villages.

2002. 49. Tours (Creative Directors: Adam Broomberg and Oliver Chanarin)
A special format for an issue that wants to be an alternative guidebook complete with addresses and information. Includes the Elf School in Iceland,
the Butter Museum in the Czech Republic and a favela tour in Brazil.

2002. 52. Trujillo (Creative Directors: Adam Broomberg and Oliver Chanarin)
A portrait of Rolando Trujillo opens an issue about just one person. Trujillo lives by himself in remote Patagonia. This issue closes the series on communities showing an extreme one made up of only one person. The issue also confirms that COLORS gives a voice to those who don't have one.

2003. 53. Slavery (Creative Directors: Adam Broomberg and Oliver Chanarin)
A photo of modern slaves in a mine in India opens the issue, made in collaboration with Anti-Slavery International. It dramatically brings to light a problem that many people think is no longer relevant and shows that slaves still exist and are often closer to home than we think (for example a beautiful mansion in Los Angeles, USA).

2004. 61. Fans (Editor: Kurt Andersen)
This issue opens the new American era, with a new editorial team based in New York. It is dedicated to fans of sports, politics, religion and music.

2005. 65. Freedom of Speech (Editor: Renzo Di Renzo)
The calligraphy graffiti of Tsang Tsou-Choi is featured on the cover. He believes he's the king or emperor of China. The issue celebrates freedom of expression and words, helping to mark the 20th anniversary of the organization Reporters Sans Frontiers.

2007. 70. Beijing. Stories from a city (Creative Directors: Peng Yangjun and Cheng Jiaojiao)
A special issue on Beijing, realize by two young Chinese Fabrica photographers, to tell, through stories of common people, the transformations that China is going through today.

COLORS #70 Beijing: Stories from a City

SPD Announces 42nd Annual Awards Finalists

MAGAZINE OF THE YEAR

CIRCULATION UNDER 500,000
33 Thoughts: Jeremy Leslie, Creative Director
Esquire: Russia: Barbanel Dmitry & Maxim Nikandro, Design Directors
New York: Luke Hayman, Design Director
POL Oxygen: Vince Frost, Frost Design, Design Director
Vino + Gastronomia: Carmelo Caderot, Design Director
W: Dennis Freedman, Creative Director, Edward Leida, Design Director

CIRCULATION 500,000 TO 1 MILLION
Esquire: David Curcurito, Design Director
Everyday Food: Eric Pike, Creative Director
GQ: Fred Woodward, Design Director
Marie Claire: Paul Martinez, Creative Director
Vibe: Florian Bachleda, Design Director
Wired: Scott Dadich, Creative Director

CIRCULATION OVER 1 MILLION
Entertainment Weekly, Geraldine Hessler, Design Director
ESPN, Siung Tjia, Creative Director
Martha Stewart Living, Eric Pike, Creative Director, James Dunlinson, Design Director
The New York Times Magazine, Janet Froelich, Creative Director, Arem Duplessis, Art Director
Play, The New York Times Sport Magazine, Janet Froelich, Creative Director, Dirk Barnett, Art Director
Real Simple, Vanessa Holden, Creative Director
T, The New York Times Style Magazine, Janet Froelich, Creative Director, David Sebbah, Senior Art Director