Ed Word: Welcome to the New MaximumPC!

Whew! It’s been a long few months, but I’d like to introduce everyone to the new, redesigned Maximum PC! It seems like just yesterday that I was telling you about the last Maximum PC redesign, but it’s actually been nearly three years. A lot has changed in that period, and it’s important that Maximum PC change with the times. Wait! Before you start writing angry letters, you should know that we haven’t changed the Maximum PC content you know and love, not one iota. We’ve just given the old girl a fresh coat of paint. I wouldn’t dream of changing an editorial formula that’s been so successful for almost 10 years.

What have we done to your magazine? The first thing you’ll probably notice is our brand-new section, The List. I’ve been a big fan of lists ever since I first saw Late Night with David Letterman. After consulting our attorneys, I discovered that there was absolutely no reason we couldn’t have a similar section in Maximum PC, and thus was born The List. Seriously though, we’ve got a killer umm... list of lists lined up, so make sure you check out the section every month. You’ll either laugh or cry, I promise.

I also want to introduce our new columnist. Joining Tom Halfhill and Thomas McDonald is Quinn Norton, who’s very excited to talk to you. Quinn comes to us from Wired News, and she’s going to cover everything from the battle against digital-rights management and crazy copyright legislation to the birth of extra-national data havens. Quinn’s got the digital freedom beat covered, and I’m thrilled to have her aboard.

You’ll also notice boatloads of less obvious changes as you flip through the redesigned mag. Font nerds will have already seen that we’ve switched most of the text in the magazine to a serif font to greatly increase readability, even at smaller font sizes. We’ve also isolated and removed many of the typesetting problems that caused us serious legibility problems in the past—hopefully, you guys can stop writing those angry letters too. We’ve renamed and revamped our Head2Head and In the Lab sections, too. Best of the Best is taking a brief sabbatical, but it will be back in a new form and better than ever in a few months.

So what do you think? Are you nervous? Scared? Slightly turned on? Either way, I’d love to hear your opinion about our new design. Study the mag, check out the changes, and shoot me an email or fill out our survey at http://maximumpc
.com/designsurvey for a chance to win a $250 Best Buy gift certificate.