Print magazines fold – what can graphic designers do?

With news this week that Grafik Magazine had folded, I got to thinking about what the loss of print publications will mean for the design community. Between blogging, reading blogs, tweeting about blogs, networking on the web, surfing the web, and, most importantly, designing for the web, I have a lot less time to flip through the crisp paper of a print magazine. Here is my response to this troublesome trend and what I think can be done.

Saying goodbye to design magazines like Grafik and I.D.

On June 22, 2010, Grafik Magazine announced that it has stopped producing editorial content. In what many recognize to be a very precarious moment for the publishing business, the owners of Adventures in Publishing – Grafik‘s publishers – decided to liquidate the company with no notice of any future activity. A London-based independently published magazine that underwent a number of transformations since its birth in the mid-80′s, Grafik published articles about contemporary graphic design, showcased upcoming graphic design artists, and reviewed design-related exhibitions and events. Editor-in-chief, Caroline Roberts, discussed its history and its proposed debut on the World Wide Web in a 2009 interview for Blackmail.

Grafik Magazine is by no means the first publication to suffer from what appears to be a print-based meltdown in recent years. On December 15, 2009, I.D. Magazine officially folded. In a statement for external release, Editor Gary Lynch referenced “several forces that have worked against its sustainability,” including weening print advertising, fragmentation of readership, and the prevalence of online material that meets fragmented needs. Perhaps failed marketing attempts or its hesitancy to adopt an identity on the World Wide Web, as suggested in an article by Fast Company called What Killed I.D. Magazine?, led to its demise as well. But is there more to it?

What’s causing the crisis?

1. The print media business model is unbalanced
   “Newspapers and magazines traditionally have had three revenue sources: newsstand sales, subscriptions and advertising. The new business model relies only on the last of these.” The “three-legged stool” analogy is used to represent balance across many different sectors, always with the same result: when one leg doesn’t work, the whole structure falls apart. With so much focus on advertising, sooner or later the print media business model was doomed to fall apart.
2. Internet offers free content, free classifieds, and better marketing segmentation
   In a system that relies so strongly on print advertising, what happens when advertisers find other outlets? Advertisers are no dummies, and they know where to look for the most profitable ad placement. So why is Internet becoming the lead medium for advertisers? One of the key principles for marketing is market segmentation. Marketers divide (potential) customer groups into subgroups in which all members share similar interests and needs. The more specific the subgroup, the more likely a company is to be able to match the needs and interests of these potential customers to the products or services it offers. Hence, the more likely it is to make a sale. The Internet has evolved into the perfect tool for market segmentation. With its never-ending selection of topics and subtopics to explore, and countless individuals producing content for more and more specific audiences, it attracts more advertisers than print media can hope to maintain.
3. Lack of support from business and government
   Bruce Nussbaum argues that big business in America has less interest in maintaining design magazines than in other parts of the world. In the midst of this recession, it’s just a downward spiral for print magazines.

What designers can do to stop this trend

As more and more design-based magazines fold, we must question what the consequences will be for the people that read them and the people that make them: designers. For me nowadays, sitting down to digest a copy of Communication Arts magazine, to which I’ve subscribed for the past 4 years, is a small luxury. It represents a moment of relaxed susceptibility to inspiration, and without even realizing it I take its content more seriously than some of the online material I stumble upon every day.

1. Save your best stuff for sources that pay and get paid
   Is that a controversial suggestion? Not to publish things for free over the Internet? I rejoice in the quality of free design tutorials, explanations, courses, and forums that exist on the Internet because they stimulate advancements in the field of web design and, in the end, bring designers together. That being said, I’m convinced that many people would pay for all of that information. In fact, a lot of people value something that they’ve had to pay for a whole lot more than the things that come for free.
2. Embrace the iPad
   The benefits that design magazines can potentially reap from iPad ads and sales might fall short of what is necessary to stop them from folding, say TBI Research and IT World. Nevertheless, if iPad application designers can make the experience of reading magazines on the iPad fabulously fun, and design magazine consumers embrace the iPad as a viable medium of communication, it will be a step in the right direction. PC Mag and Venturebeat seem to think it’s possible.
3. Subscribe to design magazines in print
   Okay, duh. Or, help them online. Here’s a list of graphic design magazine that offer great info on the World Wide Web.
4. 5 more ways to save magazines …
   Check out this article entitled 5 Ways to Save Magazines from The Wrap.

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What do you think of the fact that graphic design magazines are folding? What can we do to solve the problem?