A magazine from the people behind Mollie Makes? With cover taglines including 'Living in a thrifted home', 'Autumn bike rides' and 'Market shopping'?! Sounds amazing, right?
Sadly, The Simple Things didn't quite live up to expectations. I guess I was expecting someting similar to Oh Comely, and it is trying quite hard to be exactly that, which is part of the problem. It's trying too hard. The issue I read (number 2) felt like a bunch of marketing peeps had sat down and said, "well, this [baking bread, vintage shopping, living simply] is what everyone's into these days, let's put a magazine together." And they went away and read a bunch of blogs and tried to replicate the contents, but without the knowledge or passion required to make it successful.
All that being said, I did want to nom my way through these parsnip crisps...
...but I felt that too much of the magazine (which, at £4.99, is no bargain) was taken up with shopping spreads. I stopped reading more mainstream magazines like Red because of not wanting to be constantly marketed to, and if The Simple Things genuinely wants to position itself as an alternative to those kind of mags then it would do well to have more editorial content and less of the, "buy this, it's pretty". I will be giving it another try with their introductory offer of £5 for three issues (which runs until 30th November), and I'm hoping I start to like it more.
Oh no! I signed up for the 3 for £5 deal. I used to love Oh Comely - but they did something very naughty to me...so I refuse to buy it anymore. I hope I like this a little more than you did.
ReplyDeleteI am intrigued as to how Oh Comely did somthing naughty to you!
DeleteI felt the same. My housemate got the three for a fiver deal, so I gave one a read (this issue, in fact). I wanted to like it, but it just all felt a bit...meh. There are so many top quality blogs out there that a publication like this feels pretty pointless (especially since it was mainly images). Plus I felt like I was being heavily marketed to, but in a sneaky disguised way - paricularly disliked the page 'things to go out and find' - erm, they're not conkers, I think you mean BUY! And not putting prices on anything is also really annoying - Mollie Makes does the same thing.
ReplyDeleteYep, completely agree. I don't need to spend a fiver to look at pretty pictures when there are so many amazing blogs around.
DeleteSadly I don't think anything will change re being the heavily marketed to angle, since the Simple Things is published by Future who are a very commercial publisher (their other mags include titles like Canon Photo Plus and Mountain Bike UK). I haven't read TSS yet but Mollie Makes drove me a little crazy with its cutesy style and constant mentions of the word "vintage", so after that and your review I don't think I will.
ReplyDelete