Architectural Digest released its first digital edition last week, alongside fellow Conde Nast publication Lucky. The magazines are launching simultaneously on the iPad, Kindle Fire and Nook Color.
I spent some time with the September issue on my iPad this week. Visually it is, of course, gorgeous. AD's typically outstanding photography looks even better when backlit by the iPad. Add-ons are sparse, confined mostly to a few extra photos and short videos. Two stand out: A time-lapse video of a water-facing Manhattan apartment, showcasing its living and dining rooms in a variety of lights, and an interactive floorplan that allows readers to pull up photos room by room.
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Still, I was hoping for more -- more photos, perhaps a video walkthrough of one of the profiled spaces, or an audio interview with an owner. I was also baffled by the lack of share buttons; there's no easy way to email an article or photo (even to yourself), nor can you share to Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, etc.
Those complaints aside, it's an admirable first effort, and Editor-in-Chief Margaret Russell assures me the first issue represents "just the beginning of what [AD] can be in the future."
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We spoke to Russell about the opportunities and challenges of producing a digital edition, and why she and her team felt it was right to go digital now. Her responses are below.
Q&A With Margaret Russell, Editor-in-Chief, Architectural Digest
Digital editions still account for less than 1% of circulation among top titles. Why launch a digital edition now?
I think we have to recognize that a magazine like Architectural Digest, which will always exist and be treasured in print, also has an audience that isn't just print-oriented. For some people, digital is all they know; others are in transition, like me -- I still read The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal and Women's Wear Daily in print. But if I'm searching for something, I'll look it up online, and I'm getting better about reading things on the iPad as well. It's the way of future to access content at any time.
As an editor, it's so interesting to be able to create content for a website, for a beautiful print magazine, and then to really reconfigure and redesign for iPad and Kindle and Nook users. [The digital edition] is not just a simple PDF, which I never thought offered the best experience. It's much more interactive -- we have video embedded, exclusive pictures, interactive floor plans. It's just the beginning of what we can have these tablet editions be. It's a complement to the print version, and it's a complement to the web. The web will always be the biggest world of AD; it will have the most content on it, print will always be beautiful and special and rich, and the iPad will offer something in-between -- something that is more interactive and engaging.
What were you able to bring to the digital edition you perhaps always wanted to do with print?
We were able to completely redo the way we do sources. So now if we feature a one-of-a-kind vintage table you bought in an antique store on Fifth Avenue, we can point to something similar at David's Antiques, or elsewhere we can point to similar products by the same designer or fabric manufacturer. We can link directly, and if the website isn't in Flash, you can go straight to the website. It's made me rethink the way we do it in print now.
Did you feel you had to sacrifice anything in the digital edition?
There are advantages and disadvantages. Something about back-lit photographs has been such a wonderful surprise; photographs just look beautiful on tablets, especially on 10-inch tablets. When you're on a tablet, you can go both portrait and landscape, and the user has to be accustomed to turning for that image. But there's still something beautiful about AD in print; it's printed on beautiful paper stock.
Was there anything special about the advertising in the issue?
Several advertisers did activate their links.
Looking at Lucky's first tablet edition, it's easy to recognize the opportunities for ecommerce integration. Is that something you're planning for AD?
Lucky is a shopping magazine; AD is a magazine about inspiration. I'm sure at some point all magazines are going to end up with some sort of ecommerce business plan. For us, it's not a priority; it's not anything on my radar right now. The publishing industry, as you know, faces many different challenges. AD has always had a strong circulation business -- that is, we have a profitable circulation model, and right now we're focused on developing the tablet editions and having them grow and unfold, and developing the website.
How many people work for the website? Is it a separate department?
We have five people in digital. But there's crossover … Everyone here has been hired within the past two years, and everyone here has been hired with the idea they will write and create and design for both print and digital. That's a very different way [from most magazines] … Perhaps it's a little easier for us to adapt, to work in this multi-platform environment. I don't have to have people forget certain processes.
This story originally published on Mashable here.