Designing a magazine about magazine design

A little more than a year ago I expressed a wish that someone from the world of magazine design would begin blogging.
No one ever took up that call. At least as far as I know.
But perhaps the next-best thing is here.

In my mailbox yesterday I found a brochure for something called "FPO, the First Magazine for Magazine Creatives." A look at the marketing copy and a related Web site promises a quarterly publication that serves as "an enthusiast magazine for designers and editors who love        their job and want to produce great work."

FPO (or For Publications Only) appears to be a print-only product for print-only designers. That's a bit of a disappointment to me. When I was wishing for a design blogger last year I said the ideal writer would be someone "who knows both print and online design for our industry." The overlap between those two facets of publishing is enormous. And one of the complaints I hear most often from publishers and senior editorial staff is that the art department can't work on the Web. Sure, there are differences between designing for the page and designing for the screen. But there are similarities too. And the simple truth is that a graphic artist without basic Web skills is walking around with a fire-me-and-cut-costs sign on his head. (On a related note, check out this wish list of new hires for Web 2.0.)

At any rate, it's too early to tell if FPO will be an interesting publication. It's being produced by Auras Design, a Maryland-based company that designed such magazines as American Style. So it's a pretty good bet that the folks at FPO will know design. But that doesn't necessarily mean they'll know how to write, manage or market a magazine. So I think I'll wait a bit before I decide if I want to pay $44 to subscribe.
In the meantime, I'll keep hoping for that magazine design blog.

tags: journalism, b2b, media, trade press, magazines, newsletters, business media, design