Home Beautiful

New Zealand Home Magazine from ACP - kate sylvestor cover

Every now and then I pick up a home magazine. I have a feeling they are the de facto porn for the property obsessed bourgeoisie. This afternoon I was leafing through HOME New Zealand from ACP. Weird though it is, I have a new favourite New Zealand magazine, well for its design anyway.

Here's what I like. The magazine is nicely paced, it doesn't seem to bother with florid and pointless narratives about the dwellings featured. Even the format and the stock are nicely chosen - satin matt, rather than glossy. I like my magazine pages to have texture and find gloss paper vulgar. The choice of homes and products is tasteful and contemporary without being remote or too luxe.

The layout is stylish and mature. No self conscious artifacts or flourishes. It is obvious the design has been considered but the designers have stepped out of the way and let the story live without ham-fisted flourishes - I like restraint. All in all, quite classic but distinctive.

I'm a fan.

One niggle though - printing the green living section on brown paper is gratuitous and unnecessary. I'm pretty sure it increases the cost to the publisher, delivers nothing to the reader and so is a waste of resources - which defeats the purpose of the section in the first place.

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