At Least One Person is Pleased by Elle's Redesign

Do magazines fabricate the letters to the editor?  We don’t know, but the staff at Elle might want to be more judicious if they want to eradicate any suspicion.  The November issue includes this outlandishly enthusiastic missive.

I can’t tell you how much I loved the redesign!  I couldn’t believe my eyes!  The fashion spreads look so up to date, and as usual the intelligent articles kept me entertained for hours.  I am glad you upgraded without losing your core.  Looking forward to what is to come, and I praise you on a job well done.

Tiffany, via e-mail

“Via e-mail”?  How convenient!  No last name or location!  No way to Google to see if the letter writer actually exists! 

So if “Tiffany” is this excited about a few graphic design alterations, how worked up does she get about changes that, you know, actually have an effect on her life?  We can’t imagine, but maybe that’s because we’re distracted by Elle’s new page numbers—they look exactly like the numerals that once adorned the pages of Jane.  Or because any time we say we “can’t believe our eyes,” we mean it in the worst possible sense.

Comments

[eye4style]

I actually DO love the redesign! Here I am, email and all.

[jane]

so do i. and everyone else i've talked to about it.

[Glossed Over]

Boy, we missed the mark with our title here. The redesign isn't bad at all (though we do question the decision to continue cramming words into every speck of white space on the cover). Rather, we were amused by the super-happy and upbeat tone of the letter writer.

On further reflection, we get equally emotional about things we don't like in magazines and then post them on the internet...

[sam]

i expected a lot more from Joe Zee. his covers are hideous. the edits are medicore to plain boring. altho they are a vast improvement to isabel dupre's monthly fashion disasters. the themes and ideas, and to some extent the layout, are more cohesive and more representative of ELLE and it's history but in the end it keeps falling short.

[wei chun]

from a person who's worked for a few magazines that have fabricated letters, i would say that email isn't real. "upgraded without losing your core" sounds like a show and tell sales pitch to advertisers. i do think the design is a definite improvement but i do wish it allowed for more breathing space, like, you know, margins.