Suggestions for good interior design magazines?

November 29, 2007 1:31 PM

Good interior design magazines?

My secret santa this year is my sister-in-law. She's creative and has a great eye for decorating, and has expressed interest in maybe going to school for formal interior design training. Until she can make that happen, I'd like to give her some food for thought. She has added a few books on design to her amazon wishlist. I thought perhaps I'd pick up a book and supplement it with a subscription or two to some good interior design magazines.

I don't know much about the field (though, I'm very interested myself, since I enjoy decorating as well), so I'm offering it up to the AskMe gods. Are any of the books she asked for really excellent (a must-buy) or entirely worthless (don't waste the money)? Are there any others that you might suggest? And I definitely want to get a subscription to a great magazine - those ideas are what I'm mainly after. Help me give a kick-ass gift!

posted by MsVader to grab bag (11 comments total)

Domino Magazine
posted by icarus at 1:43 PM on November 29, 2007

Domino is more shopping-centric. If she likes traditional design, then House Beautiful or Traditional Home is good. DWELL focuses on modern design (and can be hard to read because of the layout). I also like Elle Design. O at home seems kind of thin and does "real people" articles. Architectural Digest is the most expensive and does a lot of celebrity homes but would be impressive.
posted by andreap at 1:49 PM on November 29, 2007

I'm not a new home kind of guy, so I think that American Bungalow and Arts & Crafts Homes and the Revival are two really first-rate choices. The latter is better as far as eye-candy is concerned.
posted by luriete at 2:07 PM on November 29, 2007

Dwell definitely. I'm not particularly into interior design or architecture but I eagerly await my issue every month.
posted by bradbane at 2:08 PM on November 29, 2007

I'd say Architectural Digest for the classic take on interior design, and Dwell for the modern. It's too bad NEST isn't around anymore, that magazine was the best ever.
posted by rhizome at 2:12 PM on November 29, 2007

Nthing Dwell Magazine - even if she's not a fan of modernism, it's got a lot of interesting information. And I've never found it hard to read, but then again, I'm in the Ray Gun generation, so if it's not black text on a black background I'm pretty happy.

Though a lot of the decor isn't to my taste, Western Interiors and Design was surprisingly good.

I've read Domino and don't like it much, read Blueprint once and hate hate hate it. Metropolitan Home is 90% ads and 10% content (oh, how I wish I were exaggerating), so avoid the heck out of it.
posted by rednikki at 2:46 PM on November 29, 2007

Wallpaper. One of the great things about Wallpaper is even though it's interiors & architecture focused, it goes a lot further than that. Always good to see things through a slightly wider aperture.
posted by wackybrit at 2:51 PM on November 29, 2007

If she wants to read about pre-fab tiny box houses every issue, Dwell's her magazine. Otherwise, no.

Blueprint featured Amy Butler's (her book is the "wishlist" link) home in a recent issue.
posted by birdie birdington at 2:56 PM on November 29, 2007

I think Domino is actually a pretty great choice. It mixes it up a lot and you can get a real sense of trends. And there's so much going on in each issue that there's always something to respond to.

Nest magazine was truly the shizzle. Can I still say that? Shizzle? This book from the Nest folks might be pretty awesome. And, as an interior lover myself, back issues would make a pretty great gift.

Also cool is Taschen's "Inside" series, which looks at interiors from around the world. Inside Africa. Inside Asia. Inside Cuba.
posted by wemayfreeze at 3:11 PM on November 29, 2007

Domino, Blueprint and Dwell.
posted by ersatzkat at 4:01 PM on November 29, 2007

You'd never guess from the name, but Cottage Living is surprisingly modern and good, especially with the "flea market chic" side of things. Much more "real-world" than Dwell, which I used to like but all the $$$ turned me off. ReadyMade might also be of interest. I also like the UK title Living, Etc., which has the gifty virtue of being somewhat hard to find in the states. And, since nobody's mentioned it, Martha Stewart's Living is still good, and has features on decorating in nearly every issue.
posted by libraryhead at 5:15 PM on November 29, 2007