oh....and btw, I told you so

picture illustration borrowed from blogger creaturecomforts
martha stewart's boring, sometimes pretty and mostly stale attempt to snag some of that 20-30 something female cash, has finally admitted to their ineptitude. and to this i give them credit. check here for more info 'blueprint folds, very few mind particularly' i'm just so happy to not have to look at that insane font usage anymore.

Comments

Anonymous said…
Oh, now where's "anonymous" when we need her to defend Martha?

Ha. Ha.
Anonymous said…
I'm probably not the right anonymous. I LIVE to see Martha Stewart fail.

(Anyway, Blueprint blew.)
72 and sunny said…
blueprint totally blew. not one of her best efforts. i actually, think she's a fantastic icon of our time. i love her complete and total embrace of america's free enterprise system.

i don't even care that she's a convicted felon.


she tried, she failed, she's moving on. frankly, i'm sure she had bigger fish to fry.
Anonymous said…
the design director at blueprint (deb bishop) has more design skill in her little pinky than the rest of you "poseurs" combined.
Anonymous said…
Why did you put "poseurs" in quotation marks?
72 and sunny said…
so what was deb's excuse for this piece of dreck?

obviously, she has a job i could never do. but if you're going to do it? we the readers, are going to pass judgment and in the end decide if your pay check gets signed.

even martha knew it was horrible. and is deb bishop a middle aged house wife who stopped making herself aware of pop culture in 1983?

i just never understood why it needed to be so stale. especially, if as you say, there was so much talent.
Anonymous said…
I'm thinking that post was by Deb's mom.
72 and sunny said…
ya,i 'm sort of thinking that it's someone who has a close connection with her.

which, to that i say, good for you! i love my friends coming forward and slapping the wrists of the nay sayers.

hey and i guess martha kept her on. so she must be of some worth.

i think they just had the wrong team for the job.
Anonymous said…
The problems with the magazine were bigger than the design anyway. The whole concept was 2nd rate. It was predicated on the idea that the readers were incompetent in every sphere of life. And the advice was not "fresh" (the word that the magazine kept promising it was). I mean c'mon, do we really need yet another recipe for basic run-of-the mill lasagna?
Not to mention that the whole thing was so... Caucasion. Really, it should have been called "Whiteprint."
72 and sunny said…
oh god. you're brilliant and spot on. that's EXACTLY the issue.

but still and yet, the visual design was not fresh and not fluid.

the 'quirky' factor was just too obvious.
Anonymous said…
Yeah! For a magazine that was supposed to be "fresh" and "young" and full of "energy," why pick such meticulous, scrolly, fussy type?

I think the magazine succeeded the most when they gave up any pretense of appealing to "young" readers and instead just defaulted to "Martha Stewart Living" food-porn mode: instense, ultra-crisp close-ups of vegetables in vintage dinnerware, etc.
Anonymous said…
the reason this magazine failed is because creative director eric pike is an untalented hack. the name "blueprint" was decided before any mockups were created and a sans serif title read far to masculine for a MS Shelter title -- thus the crazy ass font that martha picked out herself. further, there were far too many objectives that ever cover had to accomplish, that made it a mess.

and I'm not deb's mom...just a pal. and she's an excellent person who will admit more problems with the magazine than anyone on this blog.
Anonymous said…
Of the four magazines Martha Stewart now publishes, all of them--
--Living
--Everyday Food
--Weddings
--body & soul
have logos with sans-serif fonts.
They may not be "shelter" magazines, but they are all clearly intended for largely female readerships. So I don't understand why Martha allowed these magazines to have "masculine"-type logos, but not Blueprint.
In any case, you're dead right that the Blueprint logo font was "crazy ass." Not only was it "feminine," it just reads "old," like the logo for "Maiden Aunt Today."
Anonymous said…
true, but all of the magazines you listed have clear titles that tell the reader what is inside. "Blueprint" is an abstract term and really has nothing to do with what was inside. Just saying how that typeface came to be. If you want to blame someone for the demise of Blueprint, blame Eric Pike.
Anonymous said…
Like "Blueprint," "Eric Pike" is just a name with no meaning to the readers here. You'll need to give us the specifics of his misdeeds before we can join in the blaming.
Anonymous said…
he is the creative director responsible for the editorial mission of blueprint (or the lack thereof).
Anonymous said…
Maybe the Martha Stewart machinery is better suited to a magazine for elderly (or at least older) readers. I could see that.
Anonymous said…
Deb's friend: What, SPECIFICALLY, did this Eric Pike do to make Blueprint lousy? Give specifics.
i suwannee said…
oh god, and then there was that sarah humphrey's woman. full of disdain post http://isuwannee.blogspot.com/2007/07/good-bad-and-ugly.html
Anonymous said…
In fairness. there might have been people on the staff who were talented, but whose work was distorted by the massive gravitational warping exerted by Planet Martha.
And about this Sarah Humphreys: Notice her going on about how tiny her apt. is? She was the editor-in-chief; how little was Martha paying her, that she couldn't move into a decent apt.? Jeez. I bet working there is dreadful in so many ways.
Anonymous said…
Her tiny apartment probably cost more than your house ;-)
72 and sunny said…
mamaC-i totally get your point ,unfortunately, i live in manhattan beach. the average house is almost 2mil. and that's for something under 2 thousand sq ft.
Anonymous said…
I miss the girl who kept bringing up her friend "Deb," and how "Deb" was superior to all of us, and smarter and more talented and taller and could kick our asses.

Good times...

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