New look Furniture & Cabinetmaking Magazine.

[Andy Kev.]

Does anybody else take this magazine? The editor has moved on to something else and the mag has been completely revamped. I can imagine that it could maybe have nothing at all to do with woodworking by the time of the fourth issue from now.

It's more like a chi-chi N London style mag (the look of the bloke pictured on p28 sums it up for me).

I really liked the mag up to now. It was a good mix of good advice, half-decent tool reviews, projects both doable and impossible for normal mortals and slightly esoteric things. Now it appears to be all esoteric.

Or am I being too hard on them? Any other views?

 

[Buckeye]

Took a look through it and it looks like an home interiors magazine. Some nice pieces but I am not sure who it is aimed at.

 

[sammy.se]

The "world of Interiors" magazine is my go-to for trends and new designs. It's an expensive magazine if you buy it off the shelf, but ebay has them quite cheap, usually just one month behind.

Some cracking designs - they had desks featured a few months back.

 

[Andy Kev.]

Sammy, that sounds fine because you are getting what you pay for. However F & C purports to be a woodworking magazine and what we now appear to have is an 80% interiors magazine masquerading as a woodworking magazine.

Either they've done their market research and there's a massive public for such a mag or it will go under if it doesn't look like it has something to do with workshops where people make shavings.

 

[sammy.se]

Ah I see your point

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[Trevanion]

I'd love some more industry-focused publications. The only one I know of is Panel, Wood and Solid Surface Magazine. Back in the late 1800s and early 1900s there used to be loads of publications like "Timber News" or "Sawmill Chronicle".

 

[Doug B]

It looked like it was trying to be a cheaper version of Mortise & Tenon magazine, I wasn’t impressed.

 

[katellwood]

I can see a great deal of cancelled subscriptions and fewer picking it up at Smiths

 

[Mike Jordan]

Many of the woodworking magazines have gone to the wall or changed names, seemingly to win back readers. The Internet has loads of content some of which has been published and posted by the magazines. Page rates were slashed for contributors years back and as a result the mags were publishing repeat material and purile rubbish from journalists rather than woodworkers. I thought that F & C was great initially but gave it up years ago.

 

[sammy.se]

They need to adapt to the digital world, a world in which content on the internet is free, and instant, so... What is their USP going forward?

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[AJB Temple]

I think the market is tiny and dying off. I hardly know anyone among any friends or people who work for me (office) who is capable of making anything or in most cases even putting up a shelf. Cooking is going the same way with many twenty somethings being entirely inept and reliant on everything pre-prepared.

 

[Droogs]

hope for the planet yet then

 

[Jacob]

Haven't bought a mag in years.
A new mag would need more than a new look - it would need a purpose.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

... Cooking is going the same way with many twenty somethings being entirely inept and reliant on everything pre-prepared.

The woman dealing with the student intake at my sons university commented on seeing a couple of pot noodles that one lad had turned up that morning with a pack of twenty four, however my lad should be OK for food as she'd not seen one bring a flan case before.

 

[AJB Temple]

It's amazing. I did a charity thing at work recently, where I booked us to cook breakfast at a charity shelter, for about 300 walk in homeless people, followed by lunch for homeless women only. Full cooked breakfast - 5am start. Lots of volunteers from my young team. Fast paced work for that volume. Some were bemused to be presented with whole iceberg lettuce to be cut up - as they had only ever bought salad in packets. Chopping onions was an eye opener. They also come ready chopped in packets apparently.

 

[sammy.se]

Ah so sad :-(
Cooking is a life skill!!

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[Student]

I wonder if this is as a result of GMC Publications scaling back their woodwork related titles and trying to appeal to a wider market that reads things like Homes and Gardens, House Beautiful and the like. I’ve been a subscriber for many years to what is now Woodworking Crafts formerly known as Woodworking Plans and Projects and New Woodworking. With the latest version, they’ve certainly widened the content to include furniture restoration, marquetry, green woodworking, tree identification and articles about woodworking colleges as well as the traditional furniture making and woodturning articles plus tool reviews. However, it would seem that this still hasn’t brought in that many extra subscribers or readers as I’m told that they’re moving away from monthly publication to every two months.

 

[Jacob]

It's amazing. I did a charity thing at work recently, where I booked us to cook breakfast at a charity shelter, for about 300 walk in homeless people, followed by lunch for homeless women only. Full cooked breakfast - 5am start. Lots of volunteers from my young team. Fast paced work for that volume. Some were bemused to be presented with whole iceberg lettuce to be cut up - as they had only ever bought salad in packets. Chopping onions was an eye opener. They also come ready chopped in packets apparently.

Old men moaning about the young! They think it wasn't like that in their day, but it was, they've been moaning since the ancient greeks!

 

[Cheshirechappie]

My copy of F&C issue 290 arrived a few days ago. It's a distinct improvement on issue 289, with several technique articles, and a bit more variety; it has a couple of nods to furniture tradition, and doesn't just focus on avant-garde art market furniture.

There's hope for it yet, I think. After Derek Jones' departure and the subsequent new-look issue 289, I was seriously considering cancelling the subscription, but having looked through issue 290, I think I'll give it a chance for a while yet.

 

[woodbloke66]

Many of the woodworking magazines have gone to the wall or changed names, seemingly to win back readers. The Internet has loads of content some of which has been published and posted by the magazines. Page rates were slashed for contributors years back and as a result the mags were publishing repeat material and purile rubbish from journalists rather than woodworkers. I thought that F & C was great initially but gave it up years ago.

I used to be a regular contributor to F&C some years ago when the editors were Mike Huntley and then Derek Jones. When I started to offer copy to the mag some fourteen years ago (memory a bit dim here ) the rate per page was £75. It was still the same when I threw the towel in a few years ago and at one time it had actually decreased!
Bearing in mind that any contributor has to make the piece, photograph it (Derek was particularly adamant on almost studio quality pics) and then spend hours composing decent copy which was reasonably coherent, it was a small return for a lot of work.
I stopped subscribing because in one particular issue, there were six or seven articles of dubious quality from makers mainly in the New World, who insisted on using 'woodshop' and 'lumber' in their scribblings which I found infuriating :evil: I did have 'words' with d'management at GMC.
I always viewed F&C as a British mag, which ought to have reflected the current state of fine woodworking within the UK and in the early days it did so but was subsequently 'dumbed down' by the inclusion of poorly (IMO) produced stuff from abroad, mainly I guess because there weren't enough folk willing to take up the pen in the UK. C'est la guerre - Rob