Emotional Design
I am emotionally attached to my Believer subscription...
Side by side on my desk lay current issues of Harper's and The Believer. The Believer I look forward to with an errant enthusiasm; I've begun to wonder why I subscribed to Harper's in the first place. I've received a total of eight or so issues of each, and while I've read every Believer from cover to cover, the issues of Harper's languish, unloved and unread.
Between the stacks is a yet-to-be-read copy of Don Norman's most recent book Emotional Design, which, I'm promised by the flapcopy, illustrates that "we don't just use a product, we become emotionally involved with it." Without even having read the book (yet), I identify with its premise.
The Believer arrives roughly monthly in a manila envelope. It is printed on heavy paper, pages lovingly bordered in a slightly different ruddy color each month, conspicuously lacking any advertisements and flashy imagery whatsoever. It is 70+ pages of essay and interview; reflection and musing; punctuated by two and three color illustrations. It is bound without staples, and as such is squared-off in what feels like bookish, literary form. The magazine itself has character, complete with inky smell and defiance of the saturated-advertisement norm.
Harper's arrives unwrapped via standard mail, sometimes creased and otherwise abused by the USPS, with an address sticker invariably affixed to the lower-center of the front cover, obscuring the final of the three or four stories featured. Removing it mars the face and tears the ink from the paper. It is printed on slick, thin paper, folded in the middle and bound by visible staples. Its insides are punctuated instead with advertisements; each issue features a back cover full-page ad for some kind of alcoholic drink, corporate mission statement or otherwise.
Given the time I allow myself to read from my various subscriptions, I feel less compelled to read from Harper's than The Believer. Not because the content of one or the other is necessarily superior, but because The Believer has successfully managed the full experience of magazine subscription. I am emotionally attached to my Believer subscription, because in addition to its clever content it engages me in its superior design and end-to-end consideration of its consumer's sensibilities.
I could care less whether I lend out my Harper's issues and they never come back (their shelf-space is being eyed at this very moment). By contrast, my Believer issues are checked-out with the utmost of care, borrowers hand-picked and cautioned against the wrath of their deterioration.
I'm looking forward to Norman's book; if for nothing else to gain a more complete and eloquently stated appreciation of this behavior.