Recently, I reported how print magazines may start looking more like their tablet counterparts.
Now exactly that is happening at Hearst’s UK wing, which is launching a new, designed-for-tablet women’s lifestyle title on both iTunes Newsstand and print newsstands.
The quarterly Good Ideas is an off-shoot of Good Housekeeping; is produced by the same team; focuses on beauty, health, fashion, food, homes, gardens, consumer issues and finance for women aged 35 to 50 and majors on large photographs and interaction.
“Good Ideas has been especially designed with tablet-friendly features such as smaller articles, greater emphasis on visuals, smart phone-friendly typefaces and an interactive contents page, making it accessible for both the traditional newsstand and digital user,” Hearst announced.
Special interest magazine and web publisher Future said in February: “The next redesign of our titles will see them redesigned with our tablet versions in mind.”
That is the stage Hearst, too, has now reached with Good Ideas. It is going with a tentative 150,000 print run for the £3.99 physical edition but a “digital edition sampling drive” in which it will aim for 300,000 downloads of a free iPad edition through iTunes’ Newsstand.
Hearst Magazines UK lifestyle publishing director Judith Secombe (via release): “Designing Good Ideas to be as accessible digitally as in print is a natural next step for our business and provides an exciting platform for advertisers to engage with a new audience of women.”
It points, as we reported about Future’s strategy, to a coming unification of magazine design across print and tablet, at the same time many publishers are trying to woo advertisers with slots in tablet titles equivalent to those in print.