Harvard Business Review redesign = regrettable reinvention
I say it’s a mistake. The brand DNA of (occasional client) Harvard Business Review is deep, journal-like substance. And the table-of-contents look+feel (”before”) expressed that well.
It said: “We are about inquiry and content. We are a serious business school. We employ the principles and practices of evidence-based research. And what you are reading is part of an estimable archive and a continuum of thought that has real and lasting value.”
The new covers (”after”) look more like an amalgam of consumer-cum-business-cum-culture magazines (think Newsweek meets Fast Company meets Atlantic) — with just a hedging dash of old-school Harvard Business Review still there, top right.
It’s a piecemeal approach that saps any possible strength from the new covers. And makes HBR less distinctive from an audience development / circulation marketing / subscription sales point-of-view. As one colleague put it this morning, “Looks a lot like just any old business magazine now.”
Are you planning a redesign? If you must, remember what Jakob Nielsen has learned.
Prediction: Harvard Business Review’s next redesign arrives sooner than later. Returning as “HBR Classic” — a design made fresh by going retro. Leaving this current design iteration relegated to HBR’s archive of instructive case histories. And taking its place next to “New Coke” as a regrettable reinvention.
