New York Magazine has always had great bones—its look, created by Milton Glazer and refined by Walter Bernard, has influenced several decades’ worth of magazine-makers. But with any classic structure, the moment arrives to make it livable and comfortable for a new generation and a growing family.

In this issue, you’ll see the results of such a renovation project—prompted in part by the influence of the Internet on the way we experience and process information. The aim of this redesign was to make the magazine’s signature mix of provocative, newsy, gossipy, and useful information more explicit from the very first pages. Under the supervision of design director David Matt, we’ve knocked down some walls, and made the magazine more welcoming, better-organized, easier to navigate, and more fun to spend time in.

For starters, the table of contents has been expanded to two pages to offer a livelier guide to what’s in each issue, as well as what’s going on in the city the week the magazine comes out. Think of it as a snapshot of New York—and what’s on New Yorkers’ minds—as well as the homepage for the information embedded in our pages. Our front-of-book sections have been combined into “Intelligencer,” where you’ll now find gossip, party pictures, short profiles, and opinionated takes on the news from around town.

Our shopping and service coverage has been expanded and reorganized into a sharp-looking “Smart City” section at the heart of the magazine, where it’s always been in a metaphoric sense. And our culture and restaurant listings, which have since the early eighties been named “Cue” (after the listings magazine of that name that was incorporated into New York), are now, in the spirit of directness, called “The Week.”

If you recognize our new headline type, it’s because its close relative is on the side of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Guggenheim museum—other graphic treatments are borrowed from Deco masterpieces all over town. Part of our mission is to celebrate the city, and as Matt says, “The new design echoes the experience of driving through the city in a cab. You won’t know quite why, but it’ll be familiar.” Which is the trick to an effective redesign. It should feel like home. Come on in.

Caroline Miller
Editor-in-Chief

The verdict
Check out New York Magazine in print and tell us what you think of the new look.

Related:

• Archive: “Letters to the Editor”
• Table of Contents: Jun 30, 2003 issue of New York | Subscribe!