It's no real secret that graphicallyPM Engineerwas living in the 1970s. Since taking over as Art Director forPMElast April, one of my personal goals was to redesign the magazine to make it more reader friendly and graphically more interesting. But these things take careful thought and preparation. Ultimately, we decided that January 2000 was the right time to unveilPME's new millennium look. Other than just making the magazine look good, there are many things that we wanted to accomplish with the redesign. Keeping our readers in mind, the first thing we did was to create more “air” in the pages. This not only makes the magazine more readable, it also gives the reader's eyes a break and a chance to look around the page.
Second, we decided on a font selection that was simple in design yet modern enough for 2000, without compromising readability. Headlines and body text are now more inviting and can be read more easily. In addition, we now have fonts that complement each other rather than battling for the reader's attention.
The last thing on my palette (excuse the pun) was to get away from the grays and blues that have dominated PME since its beginning. We decided to use color photos of the columnists and created a new color palette that puts brightness into the departments and life into the sidebars.
All these changes are for you, our reader, and your feedback is important. Please let us know what you think. Contact me at needhamj@bnp.com, or our editorial staff at wrdwzrd@aol.com (Jim Olsztynski) or kellypme@aol.com (Kelly Lindsey).
