British Woodworking – A Mag Going Monthly
I am generally reluctant to endorse a particular magazine but this time I think I’ll go out on a limb a bit. It’s only a few years ago since Nick Gibbs took a stand at the North of England Woodworking Show in Harrogate for the first time with British Woodworking.
The booth and the magazine back then, I think 2007, made the bold and as yet unproven boast that the brand-new, hot-of-the-press magazine was, “the UK’s leading woodworking magazine.” I queried this with a comment to Nick and he responded confidently that he felt it was. Since that weekend of hard graft into the unknown, Nick and his magazine never looked back. With this week’s release of the December/January issue of British Woodworking and the closing weeks of this year I sense 2014 to be a year of new change. As I thumbed the pages of this copy of British Woodworking I felt a lift in my spirit.
I saw hands and faces and body stances and real people. You may recall my previous blog on another magazine where all of these elements were completely missing, so it struck me that something here really had shifted. Articles were aplenty and catered to all skill levels and every contributor knew their stuff. Some were well known and others unknown. All in all this was a good curl-up read for me and I will read it over a few times before Christmas.
Nick announced in this months issue and on a flyer that the magazine is now going monthly and at the end of January the first edition of the monthly magazine will go out. The UK subscription rate will be £38.50; that’s only 3.20 per issue. I think that if all of the issues are as interesting as this one is then the magazine is well worth subscribing to. Here’s the thing. I have seen the magazine grow, change, improve and progress. It embraces variety that makes a difference and so I felt it offers a more organic vibrancy lacking elsewhere.
I liked the healthy balance he has established between advertisement and content. I hope he can keep this. I also liked the increased white space and would like to see more yet. These are progressive improvements that I see give magazines their potency. Time allowing, I may comment on the articles. They all looked really interesting to me.