I've been a huge fan of Bitch Magazine ever since I discovered it in my college library. I've been an avid subscriber, supporter, and even had a Love it Shove it piece published there a few years ago. Trust me, getting that edition in the mail was one of my most exciting writer moments.
I've been eagerly awaiting the Fall edition of the magazine, which was delayed by a redesign and organizational changes.
Yesterday, it came in the mail. Unfortunately, I couldn't find an online replica of the new design, so I old-school scanned on of the pages from the new edition, it's after the jump.
I love you Bitch, but why so much pink??
The new design of the magazine is in color (great!) but the color makes it kind of blinding to read. It's a bubble gum/hot pink and it's just too much. I don't mind the headlines, the title boxes, the pink accents. But a good percentage of the graphics and photos are also pink hued (see scanned page after the jump). It makes it hard to read and unpleasant.
Any color, used this way, would produce a similar effect. But I still have to ask the question--why pink? As a magazine that has always been an amazing feminist critique of pop culture, I think we've seen enough pink to last us quite a while--in every product and commercial targeted to women. I'm not a pink hating feminist, but I can't help but seriously question this design decision.
I've worked on enough publications to know that a muti-colored layout would be way more expensive, but to be honest I prefer the old black and white version to this pink mania.
Update: I got this email from Andi Zeisler, Editor of Bitch (I had emailed her to let her know about my post):
Since this was our first issue with spot color, we expected some technical difficulties with the transition from black-and-white to spot color. Because of this, we decided to use magenta, which as one of the four process color makes it a known quantity -- you know what to expect and there are generally few unpleasant surprises in the printing process. Aesthetically, we felt like it announced Bitch's new look in a way that was fun and splashy, and since the Bitch website uses bright, poppy colors, the magenta fits well with the color palette we've been developing.
The plan is to switch up the spot color in the art and display type with every issue, so it's not going to be magenta every time.
As for the girly implications of the color pink, obviously we're aware that pink still signifies a lot with regard to women and representation, and this issue was meant to neither comment on that nor reclaim it. Bitch has always engaged with the varied meanings of the color (you might recall that we did a whole Pink Issue back in 2001), and we're really not interested in either writing it off entirely or embracing it in an ironic, pink-can-be-feminist-too! way. For this particular issue, the color choice was an aesthetic and practical decision, and we're very happy with it. We did expect that some people wouldn't be, but we're also well aware that we won't please everyone every time.
Also Bitch previewed the new design on their facebook group--if you search through it you can find images of this edition. I'm happy to hear that the pink is not permanent, and interested to see how the spot color turns out in future issues.
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I like hot pink as much as the next girl (probably more), but those tinted graphics just make it look like someone's printer is running out of ink. I'm really not sure what I think of the colour choice--on the one hand, it's a colour I love dearly, on the other anything using it is often targetted at teen girls. This kind of reminds me of the juniors bra department at JC Penny, which I'd really rather pretend doesn't exist.
Oh, my word. I'm so glad Bitch is back - I've been waiting and haunting the local B&N for MONTHS - but all that pink...my eyes hurt just looking at the sample pages. Yikes.
hmmm...I was not prepared for that much pink..you are not kidding! I always prefered the graphics and uniqueness of the black and white pages anyway.
Oh dear. I love pink, really I do, but the sheer overwhelming force of it is both visually exhausting and another tired old stereotype. Yes yes, pink is associated with women and maybe they think they're taking the color back or something, but really? It comes off more as "look, we're not a scary feminist magazine, we're a fun, hip, girly feminist magazine!"
You're right, any color used that way would produce the same effect - and it is garish no matter what color they would choose. Ugh, imagine yellow. Maybe they should have stuck to black and white and multitone grey.
Sometimes I think the use of pink, especially by feminist organizations such as, is supposed to be ironic or something.
I'm looking forward to receiving my own copy soon~!
I need to rest my eyes a bit after looking at all that pink. That is just painful. (and I like pink)
OH! It looks awful! AT first glance I feel like I'm flipping through a typical womens magazine.
Maybe that's the point?
A-flipping-men!
This was my first reaction to seeing the new magazine the other day, too. I instantly had a headache and I haven't read a single article yet. I usually have the whole thing read within a week of it coming and I just can't stand to look at it the way it is now.
Really Bitch? Just because girls read it doesn't mean we like pink. I'll state for the record that I hate pink, always have. But definitely agree that the magazine would be just as unreadable in any other color, save black. Please. I like the black and white Bitch usually has.
I'm going over to their website right now to request they stop with the pink. My eyes can't take it.
Yeesh. Hurts my eyes. Bitch needs to save their color ink for their beautiful covers.
I LOVE Bitch, but I too am disappointed in the new design. My heart just sank when I saw all that pink! It does seem more childish now, the black and white just made it seem more substantial.
Any color for the sake of color doesn't help a design and, in this case, just makes it a mess. And having light white text on what looks like a fuscia background is illegible. Sadly, for all the wonderful qualities Bitch had, it's always been a very poorly designed publication and they've managed to make it look worse and even amateurish (a shame considering the usually high quality of writing). They need an actual art director who knows what she's doing.
Thanks, BITCH, for proving the old, tired sexist concept that all females like PINK.
WTF.
I read about this -- they're using a different color for every issue. So the pink is a one-time thing.
where did you read that? That's actually a really interesting idea, though I think the OP is right that any color in a similar style would be a bit overwhealming, and I'm not sure white on any light color background would be readable.
Their Facebook updates. They previewed the design and a few people freaked out about the pink, so they explained that it was changing every issue.
I liked the black and white too. If you've got a small budget, embrace it! That's so much better than trying to look glossy or whatever.
i had the same reaction to the pink (and was considering an immediate letter to the editor).
i know there is probably a reason they went there, but i am actually surprised that they didn't anticipate this reaction from people and include a preemptive explanation.
but whatever, I STILL LOVE BITCH!!!!!!
Indeed, whatever, I still love Bitch, too. I'll bet it's just in substantive in magenta. Can't ait to get mine in the mail.
That's a great color for a shirt, or on your toe nails, or as an accent color in a black and white room. But it is not easy on the eyes when you're trying to read something. That actually hurt my eyes, and it's not because I've been crying over Ted Kennedy (which I have been, but it's still not why).
Sweet! That color is on my toenails. It would be on my fingernails too if it were more professionally acceptable.
the only issue i have with this is that it is just poor design. but i actually LIKE that its pink. how fucking fierce that they are writing about the problem of gendered video games while pink-ifying the whole page! it feels to me like a reclamation of this notoriously hated color.
Random thought: I love Diner Dash.
Haha, same. First thing I noticed.
Looks like magenta, one colour that goes into full-colour offset printing. Odd to see it used by itself, as though the yellow, cyan, and black plates went missing.
Two-colour printing is way cheaper than four-colour, but the second colour is usually something like red or blue. :)
I just added a response from Editor Andi Zeisler to the post--check it out for more detail about the new design.
So funny to see a post on this. I just got the issue yesterday and was having the same reaction. I second the notion that the real problem with the magenta is how eye-unfriendly it is. Definitely headache-inducing. While yellow would have also looked pretty gross, it seems blue would have been much more pleasant to look at and avoided the inevitable offense given to feminists fed up with pink. I guess we'll just keep our fingers crossed for improvements with the next issue...
Yeah, I'm kind of iffy on the pink too, although I like the idea of accents of a single color. Rotating every issue is kind of a fun idea, though, especially because it gives me something else to look forward to -- what color will they be using? I didn't mind the pink on a lot of the pages (like the one you scanned with the white text in the pink boxes), but I wasn't a huge fan of a lot of the pink-tinted graphics. Like you, Miriam, I don't hate pink and magenta for any political reasons or on some sort of visceral level, but I do question it as a good design decision.
I did like a lot of the articles in this issue, though, especially the one about video games. I like that Bitch always has a nerdy-ish article -- video games, science fiction, et cetera.
Another thing about two-colour printing from a design perspective is that the second colour is usually used judiciously. :)
More years ago than I care to admit to, I was a production manager and did page impositions. No advertiser with a two-colour ad ever specked it for magenta. 4A red, yellow, or blue, and always as an accent colour.
i guess i'm in the minority here, but i liked it. after waiting so long to see the issue in my mailbox, i was just happy to read the articles, the color was an added bonus.
and just because the feministing logo is purple, doesn't mean the editors assume all women/feminists like the color purple. it's just an aesthetic choice. likewise, the editors at Bitch aren't using pink to reinforce the idea that all women/bitches like pink. it's just design, and ever-changing design at that.
looking forward to seeing the next issue's color! (and reading the articles).
With the fonts and layout it looks like they are emulating Bust.
Definitely headache inducing. And why does there have to be SO MUCH of it? I also don't think that using different colors with each issue will be much of an improvement. Imagine orange! Or yellow! Even with a nice cool color like blue or green I think it just looks and will look a mess. A few accents here and there would be fine but this is way overkill. I love, love, love, Bitch but I haven't even been able to finish one article in this issue because it's so unpleasant to look at.