“There are few things more boring”, the editor of The Economist wrote in 2001, “than long articles by editors about how their redesigns are going to produce a sharper, more modern, publication, brightening readers’ lives and furthering world peace.” Although he has a point, it is still appropriate to outline the thinking behind the new design that is being introduced in Physics World this month.

The main change is that there will be fewer words per page plus bigger and better photographs, diagrams and illustrations. Many pages will now have an “active column” – a narrow band of white space that will introduce more variety into the visual appearance of the magazine and, in theory, make individual pages and articles look more inviting. There have also been subtle changes to the logo, which is now all in lower case, Dutch has replaced Baskerville as the main typeface, and a new colour scheme has been introduced.

There are other changes too. The Physics in Action section has been dropped to allow both the Post-deadline section (now renamed Frontiers) and the Features section to become larger. The Einstein 2005 page has also been moved to the front of the magazine and will be replaced there by a new one-page section in January.

Readers might ask if features articles will become shorter (i.e. have fewer words) to allow for these changes. The answer is no: there is no set length for features in Physics World and articles are edited to the length appropriate for that topic. Some features might be just two pages long, while others will run to six pages or more. The aim is always to ensure that a topic is covered in enough detail to give the reader a real insight into the state of progress in a given field, but written at a level that can be understood by someone who is not familiar with the subject matter and, crucially, edited in a way that maintains the interest of the reader all the way to the end of the article. As before, we believe that the best way to do this is to include as little mathematics and jargon as possible.

Our reader surveys confirm that you already appreciate the content and appearance of the magazine. The overall aim of the new design is to make the magazine an even better read than before.