While the magazine is not something you can pick up in a store, Google is saying that it intends to publish all of the articles from the magazine on the Think Quarterly website and you can download PDF and EPUB copies of the first issue that you can then read on your iOS/Android tablets.

The thing that’s interesting about Think Quarterly to my mind is that, for a company that is roundly regarded as not having much taste when it comes to design, the magazine looks fantastic.¹ The layout is clean but with touches of visual flair here and there that encourage you to continue reading and, perhaps more importantly, assist in understanding the material.

All of which makes the website pretty disappointing. To be clear, the site is not ugly. And it’s not obviously a Google site. Definitely, it has style. No, the problem with the website is the way that the articles are displayed. Which is to say that you are able to read them and… that’s about it. Compare the lead story — an interview with Guy Laurence, the CEO of Vodafone UK — as it’s presented in the magazine with how it’s presented on the website.

Again, it’s not that the presentation is horrible. It’s just that it has no oomph. There is none of the flair that accompanies the article as it’s presented in the magazine. What’s more, while you might at first think that the layout really isn’t that bad, when it’s repeated for article after article after article, it begins to get a little stale. More to the point, it evidences a complete lack of imagination for the design of the site. Kudos to Google for putting well-written content up there to be sure, but it’s a sad reflection on where we are with web design that this would be considered a pretty good magazine website.

It’s tempting to say that one shouldn’t be surprised that Google has not put the same amount of attention to detail into the website as it has to the magazine (particularly when it has no financial incentive to do so). This is fine if Think Quarterly were the only publication afflicted with this problem. Unfortunately, it’s not. See here, here, here, here, here, here and here (and so it doesn’t look like I’m just picking on magazines: here, here, here, here and here). This isn’t a case of Think Quarterly’s designers lacking imagination. It’s a case of web designers in general lacking imagination. It’s a fundamental inability, more than 20 years after the web first started and over a decade since the Internet went mainstream, to create layouts and designs that match the quality of those in print.

I am not a hater. There is great work being done — some of it by Google, some of it by people who are not magazines and some of it by magazines that only exist on the web. It’s 2011. We can stop being the poor cousin. We just need to release our imaginations.²

In fact, I love the design of the new Foreign Affairs website so much I decided I’d subscribe to the magazine. They have a paywall in place and I was getting frustrated at not being able to read what sounded like the most interesting articles. Also, I don’t believe there’s some magical money-making machine that ensures good writing gets paid for. So I thought, you know what? I’ll do it. I’ll subscribe.

If you live in the U.S., a subscription to Foreign Affairs magazine costs US$32. If you live outside of North America you pay US$32 for a subscription and US$35 for delivery.

I suppose we shouldn’t be surprised. Printing is cheap these days and Australia is a long way from the United States. And US$67 is hardly the end of the world. But I don’t like paying for things I don’t need and I didn’t want the printed version of Foreign Affairs; I just wanted to be able to access the website. Surely something could be done. I thought my question was pretty straightforward:

Hi

I’m not sure who the right person to ask is. I’d like to subscribe to Foreign Affairs but I live in Australia.

The main reason that I want to subscribe is to have full access to the website. To subscribe with an Australian address will cost more in shipping than the cost of the subscription itself (currently US$35 v US$32).

Is it possible only to subscribe at the US price and simply not have the physical magazine shipped to me?

Cheers

Michael.

This was the response:

Ms. Camilleri,

We do not offer kindle subscription. Please contact Amazon.com for further assistance. If we can be of any other assistance, please let us know.

Thank you for subscribing to Foreign Affairs.

Sincerely,

Pete Stone Email Customer Service

Stellar job there, Pete. In three lines you managed to call me a girl, tell me to go and ask someone else for help subscribing to your magazine and then thank me for subscribing when my question was about how I could subscribe.

Still, I kept my cool:

Dear Pete

I’m not actually after a Kindle subscription; what I’d like to know is if there is some way to subscribe without having the magazine sent to Australia. I presume I could simply put a U.S. address in and send my issues to someone else but, in the interests of saving paper, I thought perhaps it would be possible to subscribe and simply have the magazine not sent.

Cheers

Michael.

The response:

Ms. Camilleri,

We are sorry, we do not offer digital subscriptions. If you wish to avail only a online subscription and no print version, please contact amazon.com.

Thank you for your interest in Foreign Affairs.

Sincerely, Scott Shelton Email Customer Service

Two things: (1) Seriously, when did Michael become a woman’s name? (2) What is it with you guys and Amazon?

I realise there’s a danger at extrapolating from personal experience. What happened to me is possibly a one-off. Certainly it’s not the cause of the decline in print media. But it’s hard not to see it as emblematic of a struggle for companies to adjust to the idea that people might want to pay for the content without the dead trees.