NEW YORK Texas Monthly has infused a ranch-size amount of Texas taste and sensibility into its latest redesign, unveiled in the May issue.
“When you work at a magazine, you manage a brand,” said editor Evan Smith about the 300,000 circulation title. “How do we stick with people and distinguish ourselves more? By reinforcing the brand.”
To do that, the revamped look centers on a new typeface, Sentinel, custom created for the magazine with an antique look and heavy serif edges. The type “is distinctly Texas and reinforces the history and perception of Texas Monthly,” said art director Scott Dadich.
The magazine also added color tabs to the top corners of front-of-the-book sections and “L brackets” on the gutter side of every edit page outside the feature well. “More ads now resemble editorial,” said Smith. “There’s a need to distinguish the look of editorial copy from that of advertising.”
Another typeface new to the magazine, Retina (originally designed for stock-market listings, to be legible at small sizes), will display the title’s extensive restaurant and event listings in a more legible and efficient way. Though the last redesign was only in April 2001, “technology has made it both possible and necessary to shorten that interval,” said Smith.
The 18-month revamp also included adding color to the listings, expanding the front-of-book “Reporter” section and adding a long-form Q&A “Texas Monthly Talks,” which corresponds with the title’s statewide public-TV program of the same name.
TM‘s ad pages through May 2004 were down 5.4 percent to 608, partially due to the success of the February 2003 30th anniversary issue, according to publisher’s estimates.
'Texas Monthly' Reinforces Lone Star Roots
