I have close to 10 years’ worth of magazine clippings amassed in my flat files and here’s a small sampling. Even with the abundance of reading materials online and on the iPad, I am still a diehard connoisseur of print. I do have an iPad (and subscribe to some magazines that are more interactive) but I’m still keeping my print magazine subscriptions as well. All you hear these days is, “Print is dead!” But it’s really not dead, it’s just changing. You may see less printed materials but the quality of what you do see is higher overall. I love my iPad but still equally enjoy the feeling of digging through stacks of clippings and pooling together inspiration. What about you?

I still have some of my 90s clippings too stuffed into a folder (though those mostly revolve around Kurt & Courtney, some Versace ads and a healthy dose of Marilyn Manson). My poor, poor parents had to deal with my bedroom walls covered in this stuff! And maybe that’s where my nostalgia for print and holding onto my magazine subscriptions comes from — that’s all I had before a steady internet connection and the iPad.

Readers: What iPad publications do you subscribe to? Any recommendations? My favorite so far has been Project Magazine.

After picking up the occasional issue of Interview Magazine, I finally broke down and subscribed because it’s consistently beautifully designed and the mix of content is always compelling. Part of this shift over the last few years is in no doubt due to Fabien Baron being the editorial director. I’ve been a long time admirer of his work and it’s no surprise that he’s turned Interview around considering that in the last 20 years, he’s also revamped five other magazines including Italian Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar.

His use of white space is one of the reasons his work stands out and probably influenced by the fact that his dad was a Parisian newspaper designer. Regarding his take on Interview, Baron says, “People buy into personality. And you need to be bolder.”

I found this graphic on the Interview site — it’s brimming with a distinctly Baron-esque look; have you checked it out?

The one fail-safe fashion magazine that I continually subscribe to year after year is Elle. The art direction and type treatments are always amazing but beyond that, the articles are intelligent, often times humorous and extremely well-written. I have a few other fashion favorites (W, Marie Claire and the freshly redesigned Bazaar) but relate most to Elle. Now the world’s largest fashion magazine (with 42 international editions in over 60 countries), they’re constantly pushing their boundaries with the design and I appreciate that. Plus, the fashion is killer. I’ve always felt like I related more to the world of advertising than fashion but my one exception is Elle. My ultimate dream job is to work at Elle.

I always have a stack of books and magazines sitting around. Fresh issues of Elle are almost always on top because their fresh type treatments and edgy fashion draw me in every time.

These are a few of my favorite pages from the last few issues. Elle always feels so crisp and modern. I should mention that beyond the design, my guilty pleasure each month is flipping straight to Ask E. Jean; do any of you read her as well? Maybe Elle appeals to so many because it’s so much more than just a pretty picture. The images draw you in but the content goes deep.

Remember my post a few weeks back about subscribing to free catalogs for inspiration? Well, this is one of the issues I’ve received since then. Honestly, you can’t really ignore a catalog that shows up in your mailbox with a blazing deep tangerine cover proclaiming, “NICE TO MEET YOU.” I was smitten from that alone!

J. Crew has a knack for curating the basics into lust-worthy objects of desire and, well, they know what they’re good at. In this latest issue, J. Crew says, “Today, we’re so much more than a catalog — in fact, we hear it from you every day…so really, we’re just catching up with you by calling this book what you’ve been calling it for some time: a style guide.”

The type treatments, photography and layouts feel worthy of a glossy fashion magazine moreso than a catalog so I can see why they’ve elevated it to a ‘style guide.’ Designers, if you’re ever working on any look books, this is a great starting point for inspiration. I especially love the spread featuring a grid of swimwear options (above). They keep it simple with their layouts. Nothing more, nothing less.

J. Crew knows its audience and has fun with the basics without feeling overly trendy. The tone of their style guide matches this aesthetic perfectly and needless to say, though I don’t own much in the way of J. Crew, I’m a big fan of their design aesthetic. Get your copy of the catalog here (because there are a ton more pages that are just as awesome lurking inside).

I first started reading Harper’s Bazaar during the Liz Tilberis years and still remember many of the iconic covers from that time well (this is one of my favorites). After her untimely death, I kept my subscription going but it just didn’t have that same spark. In the last year though, I’ve noticed a shift back to what Bazaar does best: simple layouts, bold images and crisp type.

The covers have grown more graphic and feature less headlines; the type curves along the pages to accent accompanying photos. Even the table of contents is beautifully designed! I really, really love what Bazaar is doing these days.

Bazaar’s layout prove that there’s strength in simplicity.

I’m a self-confessed magazine junkie but it doesn’t end there; I collect catalogs as well. Not just any old catalogs, though. There’s a handful of titles that I’ve collected for years and with good reason. My passion is editorial design and while there’s a lot of inspiration in this area online, the magazines and catalogs they come from are often truncated to only include the ‘best of the best.’ The experience of flipping through a printed piece, page by page, in its entirety tells a story with a beginning, middle and end that can never quite be replicated online.

Today I’d like to share some of my favorite catalog titles and best of all, they’re all free (see links below). These catalogs can really come in handy for designers. Three years ago, I was hired to design a fashion lookbook for a Fortune 100 company. When I was briefed on on the job, a lightbulb went off. I’d collected dozens of catalogs that were very much in line with the demographic this company was trying to reach so I hauled in my collection the next day and my art director and I got busy flipping through various issues, gathering visual cues and layout inspiration during our early explorations. Having complete catalogs at my fingertips to bookmark and sort through versus screen shots of bits and pieces of online inspiration was immensely helpful.

Books can be expensive and not every designer has the means to build their own personal library right away (I am only now amassing a decent one). But one thing you can do, no budget necessary, is to collect catalogs. They often change their theme and layouts on a monthly basis and can provide a quick dose of inspiration wrapped up in a short retail story.

As a designer, it’s good to be aware of trends and movements around you, not just online but also in print. The goal is to not lift everything you see but to rather ignite the sparks of creation. Colors, type choices, the placement of images and the copy all play a role in the finished product and may inspire your next project, as well. Get inspired and then push forward and use that inspiration to create your own vision. Remember though, inspiration is meant to be just that; inspiration. Then, it’s time to get to work! As Anna recently said, “Try to put a limit on the amount of time you spend searching for and cataloging images for the sake of inspiration. Think more about appreciating these things for what they are, and not just how you can apply them to your own work.”

Here are some of my favorite free catalogs for print inspiration:

• Urban Outfitters: Sign up for monthly catalogs; they change themes very often.

• Anthropologie: Monthly catalogs with inspiring locales and subtle type.

• Madewell: This catalog is in an oversized format and printed on matte paper with hip, lookbook worthy layouts. Definitely my favorite of the bunch!

• House Industries: This type foundry catalog is always colorful with a cheery retro vibe.

• J. Crew: They’re always sending out something new and have glossy magazine-worthy photos and type treatments.

Last week, I was at the grocery story perusing the magazine rack and in between picking up Martha Stewart Weddings (research for the Rock n’ Roll Bride magazine) and reading a Marilyn Manson interview in Revolver (it’s really good, by the way), this cover of SPIN caught my attention.

The last time I bought SPIN was somewhere close to 10 years ago but I couldn’t take my eyes off this cover. Sleigh Bells are everywhere at the moment (and Alexis Krauss is gorgeous) but there was something else that made it stand out — the lack of jarring, huge headlines and the matte paper used for the cover.

SPIN, now a bimonthly publication, has undergone a massive redesign. Of the retooling, SPIN says, “In the many discussions about how to best enable this magazine to have a long, prosperous — or any — future, it became impossible to ignore the past. Not just this magazine’s past, but the very idea of what magazines have meant, of what we want to read in them, and why.” They’ve made a number of changes inside that reminds us of the music magazines we used to love including, in their words, “deep, long-view critical thinking and cultural analysis that’s so often lacking today.”

The “new” look is intentional and a nod to the original SPIN magazine and dare I say, very now. For better or worse, many of the design elements remind me of an Urban Outfitters catalog. But in a way, this lo-fi approach stands out amongst the slick redesigns of many other freshened up periodicals.

Readers: Have you picked up the new SPIN and what do you think overall?

When I came home last night and flipped through the April 2012 issue of W, this type layout caught my eye. I think it has the perfect amount of attitude to complement Karlie Kloss while still remaining sleek and editorial. View the rest of The Typofiles here.

P.S. What are your current favorite magazines? Anything new I should check out?

Over the weekend, I picked up the newest issue of Monster Children at my local Barnes & Noble and had to share. The editorial design is beautiful as always.

When I first posted about Monster Children #32 last month, a fellow reader forwarded me a link to the portfolio of Creative Director, Campbell Milligan. Amazing work!

I first discovered Nest, a quirky quarterly interior design magazine in the Fall of 2000 at Border’s. The bright yellow exterior grabbed my attention and when I flipped through the issue (which was housed in a plastic zippered pouch), I was hooked. Instead of focusing on conventionally beautiful interiors, Nest zoomed in on the weird and outrageous. As Wikipedia notes, “During its run, Nest showed the room of a 40-year-old diaper lover, the lair of an Indonesian bird that decorates with colored stones and vomit, the final resting place of Napoleon’s penis, the quarters of Navy seamen and a barbed-wire-trimmed bed that doubled as a tank.”

I made a point to pick up an issue every time I spotted it on the newsstand until it abruptly ended its publishing run in 2004. One of my personal favorites was issue 11 which featured a cross burned through each page, cover to cover. Each issue of Nest had a completely unique theme that was always a welcome surprise.

Read more about Nest:

• A Truly Great Magazine Says Farewell
• Nest Magazine Closes
• A Champion Of the Quirky Writes Finis