Close but still far

Bloomberg Businessweek still doesn’t get the web

Ask any Art Director in New York City today which magazine is the best designed and almost everyone will praise Bloomberg Businessweek. Richard Tulley’s brash sense of humor runs boldly counter to the well structured magazine full of snappy business information. Each month’s cover declair the magazine’s voice and opinion with a graphic strength unparalleled anywhere else on the newstands. But when it comes to the web, they still show the sagging signs of old media.

I understand that the Businessweek imprint is just a sub-brand of the giant Bloomberg empire, but Bloomberg.com leaves a lot to be desired for. I won’t dive too deeply into their problems, but their recent homepage redesign screams laziness and messy backend organization.

Slowly but surely Businessweek has been trying to port some of their quirky print graphics into online interactives. Some have been great, but most have been clunky adaptations. I think that is where the problem begins, their adaptations. They are not graphics that are made native to the web. Print infographics are re-engineered to take advantage of hokey web interactions.

I spoke with BBW’s former graphics editor Jennifer Daniel and she also admitted the lag in adopting web tools. The most glaring issue that she pointed out was that there really wasn’t anyone on staff to build better solutions that the designers can come up with. I don’t doubt that the designers at BBW can create compelling, fun, and informative interactive graphics. I suspect it’s a lack of institutional support that keeps them from pushing that area forward. After all, their bottom line is print sales.

But I think that’s a misguided assumption. I’d like to see BBW be the pioneers in sculpting how a magazine cover looks and behaves in a purely digital world. The BBW app is pretty decent for an iPad magazine port. The interactions are simple and the structure is easy to understand. But still there are too many bells and whistles that act as a brand straight-jacket. The iPad edition totally misses the freeform layouts that BBW features have.

So, Mr. Tyrangiel and Mr. Topolsky I challenge you to pair up your developers with your designers. Let them run free as they do with their print editions to create some really great native work.