New Metro: “lacks cohesion, like, er, Auckland”
Metro magazine has been revamped – again. The Auckland darling’s latest botox treatment gets a thumbs down from long time Metro friend (and StopPress critic) David MacGregor. Plus, we have some breaking news about the Citymix & Metro merger.
Metro is an old friend. It showed up on the newsstand the other day after its latest bunch of cosmetic procedures. I barely recognised it, if you’ll pardon the pun (more on that later). Miniature format, not quite Reader’s Digest, but certainly less imperious than the previous oversize format—which, economics aside—I thought they gave Metro character.
The redesign is ‘nice’ but it reeks of its references, splash of New York magazine here, soupcon of Vanity Fair there … The content is typically Metro, but seems to lack cohesion. The city life material, restaurants and events are more interesting and newsy—but less ‘important’ in the small format.
The journalistic articles fight for head-space … hard to make the editorial connection. The return of the Ferret could be inspired, could be too little too late (and, in the Twitter era, too ponderous).
As New Zealand’s leading city, and the only one big enough to sustain a glossy monthly magazine, Auckland deserves a vibrant magazine. I’d hate it if Metro were to fold. But the relaunch seems as pasty as the curiously composed and heavily retouched Outrageous Fortune players on its gate-fold.
Bottom line: too much going on and not enough at the same time. Ironically, just like Auckland.
PS: Metro now includes Citymix, the events magazine purchased today by ACP Media. Founder of Citymix, the gorgeous Christina Sayers Wickstead, has now been appointed editor of Next magazine.
peter
September 1, 2009
I saw this cover today and didn’t want to open it for fear the pics inside would be even worse!
Jason Kemp
September 1, 2009
Does anyone still care about Metro? They started in 1980 or ’81 or thereabouts.
That is a very long time to hang around without a serious reinvention.
Of course I’m surprised about Readers Digest too but then I don’t buy either.
Su Yin Khoo
September 2, 2009
@Peter: In that case you better keep it closed. ;)
peter mac
September 3, 2009
“The redesign is ‘nice’ but it reeks of its references, splash of New York magazine here, soupcon of Vanity Fair there … ” AHEM new fonts by nz font designer Kris Sowersby… very awesome too. Does HB Media support local font designers? Just curious.
matt
September 3, 2009
Sure. We use one of Kris’ fonts, New Zealand, in Idealog (and have done since mid-2008). We’d like to use more, though, and I’m sure we will in future.
peter mac
September 3, 2009
@Matt; nice one!