Magazines: In Hand or Online?

I love magazines.

It is one of my major vices. On any given day you can find a stack of magazines at least 10 high waiting to be read. I love pretty much all of them. Gossip, fitness, parenting, craft and of course home decor. But over the last several years magazine after magazine has gone under. Domino, Elle Decor, Blueprint, O at Home, House and Garden all in the last two years. It seemed to be a sad scene for home decor magazines. Worry abounded that other favorites would be soon to follow. Instead the remaining magazines seemed to have stepped up their game in response. Style at Home and House Beautiful stand out to me as magazines that have done nothing but improved over the last two years and I love settling into my sofa for a few hours on the weekend to pore over the latest issues.

In addition, the online magazine scene has started to expand. It started with the Domino spinoff Lonny I've read a few issues and LOVED the content. Now there is Nesting Newbies I haven't had the opportunity to flip through this one yet but it got good reviews overall from Apartment Therapy As well, several paper magazines have online versions available, Style at Home and House and Home, to mention a few.

When you combine online magazines with the plethora of design blogs and the popularity of Flickr, it's easy to find inspiration with a few keystrokes. And because of the long turnaround time magazines experience (they are working on Christmas issues in the middle of summer) I often find myself noting month old trends on the "new and newsworthy" pages. As a quick example, the May issue of House Beautiful listed subway scrolls as a noteworthy trend while Apartment Therapy readers dismissed the trend as over and done with in February 2010.

But I haven't been able to fully commit to online magazines. Every month I think I will explore the latest Lonny but I rarely get around to doing it. Part of it is because I spend a ton of time on the computer and have a hard time sitting down and committing to reading a whole magazine on the screen. Part of it is that I love curling up and flipping through pages, tearing out the ones that really inspire me. I'm sure that I will eventually begin to explore more of the online content but for now, I really hope that my favorite magazines continue to publish paper copies each month.