I’m somewhat surprised that I haven’t heard more about Tank magazine’s decision to save money last month and go for a spiral binding.
It was a brave move for sure, and I finally had a look at it today. You know what? It’s rather nice. They haven’t skimped on the paper, which is thicker than a usual glossy’s, and is matt in a good way.
The format means that a photoshoot can be spread out flat on your coffee table, and the whole thing is much easier to read/hold than glue or saddle stitch-bound magazine. It’s also presumably easier to tear out pages that you like.
The one disappointment is that they haven’t made much of a design feature of the new format, including how visible the binding is. It’s almost as if the magazine is in denial about its own format change.
The editor’s letter suggests this isn’t a one off, but instead how we can expect Tank to look from now on. I don’t know how quickly the novelty will fade, but for now it feels very different interacting with it, and made me question my assumptions of how magazine bindings usually function. In a sector where distinctiveness is everything, that’s no bad thing. Smart work, Tankers – I’m just amazed that no-one’s done it before.
