RIP Blender
US music title Blender closed today following a 31% plunge in ad sales last year. By coincidence, I recieved what has become the final issue in the post today. Here are some pictures of it.
So it wasn’t the best magazine in the world, but it had some lovely typographic touches and a nice way with graphic devices and illustration that owed a lot to the team’s love of music and music graphics. And a surprisingly European feel for an American title.
It’s a shame to see any magazine close, but even more so when it’s a title that pays such obvious care and attention about the way it looks (thanks Matt).
5 Comments
Comment on March 27, 2009 by Captain Scott (Oates has stepped out) says:
let’s refer ad infitum to the debate ON THIS SITE about the Blender redesign and the mass derision vs the AD’s plastic defense.
And Another One Bites The Dust…
Comment on March 27, 2009 by jeremy says:
That debate has been had, lets not revisit it.
Comment on March 31, 2009 by Matthew Ball says:
Beautiful work and in the present climate difficult to reproduce. David Hepworth, on his blog, says that one of the next steps for publishers wanting to save money is to cut back on, what he calls, ‘polishing’. The hours spent, by magazine professionals, perfecting pages, getting the language just right and layouts flawless.
Comment on March 31, 2009 by LondonLee says:
I went out and bought a copy of Blender last night for the first (and last!) time ever. The design was nice (if, yes, very derivative) but the content and writing was pretty poor. Lord knows it must be hard to do a golden-era Smash Hits or NME these days, but still.
Comment on April 1, 2009 by RS says:
I picked up this mag in Borders a few weeks ago and it felt more like a pamphlet than a proper magazine. It was great when it first came out, but I’m sure their demise started when launch Editor Andy Pemberton left, just like Q started to go downhill when he left that mag a few years earlier…
