Bitch has a new look

I’ve been a huge fan of Bitch Magazine ever since I discovered it in my college library. I’ve been an avid subscriber, supporter, and even had a Love it Shove it piece published there a few years ago. Trust me, getting that edition in the mail was one of my most exciting writer moments.
I’ve been eagerly awaiting the Fall edition of the magazine, which was delayed by a redesign and organizational changes.
Yesterday, it came in the mail. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find an online replica of the new design, so I old-school scanned on of the pages from the new edition, it’s after the jump.
I love you Bitch, but why so much pink??
The new design of the magazine is in color (great!) but the color makes it kind of blinding to read. It’s a bubble gum/hot pink and it’s just too much. I don’t mind the headlines, the title boxes, the pink accents. But a good percentage of the graphics and photos are also pink hued (see scanned page after the jump). It makes it hard to read and unpleasant.
Any color, used this way, would produce a similar effect. But I still have to ask the question–why pink? As a magazine that has always been an amazing feminist critique of pop culture, I think we’ve seen enough pink to last us quite a while–in every product and commercial targeted to women. I’m not a pink hating feminist, but I can’t help but seriously question this design decision.
I’ve worked on enough publications to know that a muti-colored layout would be way more expensive, but to be honest I prefer the old black and white version to this pink mania.
Update: I got this email from Andi Zeisler, Editor of Bitch (I had emailed her to let her know about my post):
Since this was our first issue with spot color, we expected some technical difficulties with the transition from black-and-white to spot color. Because of this, we decided to use magenta, which as one of the four process color makes it a known quantity — you know what to expect and there are generally few unpleasant surprises in the printing process. Aesthetically, we felt like it announced Bitch’s new look in a way that was fun and splashy, and since the Bitch website uses bright, poppy colors, the magenta fits well with the color palette we’ve been developing.
The plan is to switch up the spot color in the art and display type with every issue, so it’s not going to be magenta every time.
As for the girly implications of the color pink, obviously we’re aware that pink still signifies a lot with regard to women and representation, and this issue was meant to neither comment on that nor reclaim it. Bitch has always engaged with the varied meanings of the color (you might recall that we did a whole Pink Issue back in 2001), and we’re really not interested in either writing it off entirely or embracing it in an ironic, pink-can-be-feminist-too! way. For this particular issue, the color choice was an aesthetic and practical decision, and we’re very happy with it. We did expect that some people wouldn’t be, but we’re also well aware that we won’t please everyone every time.
Also Bitch previewed the new design on their facebook group–if you search through it you can find images of this edition. I’m happy to hear that the pink is not permanent, and interested to see how the spot color turns out in future issues.