1.13.2012

Remembering: Blueprint

It's a snowy day here in Toronto, presenting me with the perfect opportunity to stay indoors and continue my weeklong pursuit of de-cluttering. So far the closets, dressers and cabinets have been purged, manifesting in several bags full of clothing for donation. The storage locker's 'enema' resulted in the selling of a huge box of VHS films that were gathering dust and today it is the magazines and books that are getting some attention. Going through my magazine holders with the purpose of editing them means completely avoiding my untouchable Martha Stewart collection of magazines: a full 22 holders in all, each containing between 10 and 14 issues of the magazine, special issues, catalogs and other Martha paraphernalia.

Among my treasures is the complete collection of Blueprint magazine. Going through them today made me so nostalgic for this beautiful little book, which sadly only published eight issues before it folded. I feel that Blueprint along with Domino - another defunct beauty - were such trend-setters, ushering in a new era of magazine philosophy and design, which also had wide implications for the online delivery of lifestyle/design content as well. I miss Blueprint to this day.

In the interest of archiving, I took the liberty of scanning each of the covers. From my files, to yours.








6 comments:

Anonymous said...

I think MSO made a hasty decision to pull this magazine .. I remember I had just bought 6 gift subscriptions for Xmas presents and the next day heard it was pulled ... I think the final editor Sarah Humphrys had really started to make a great magazine .. she went back Real Simple (which I have never liked)

ANDREW RITCHIE said...

I agree. I had just renewed my subscription when the bad news came. And I think the last issue was the best issue. It was just starting to hit its stride.

Anonymous said...

Andrew -- did you see that dumb article in the Toronto Star about Martha -- is her reign over .. what a waste of time ...

Jamie said...

Internally, MSLO agrees with you. Several meetings I was in I heard the phrase: "We made a mistake killing 'Blueprint'."

ANDREW RITCHIE said...

There has been at least one 'Martha's reign is over' article a year since 1999. If I had a dime...

Sarah in Tacoma WA said...

I still have all of my Blueprint issues too. It was a great magazine, a good bridge between full on homemaker-Martha and young-Martha.

When I heard it folded I called subscription services to order issue #1 that I had missed. Glad I did since they started selling on ebay for huge amounts.

Blueprint would bring in the readers who might not be Living readers yet.