EMMAS DESIGNBLOGG

I subscribe to both the Swedish Elle Interiör and the Norwegian Elle Interiør. They are very different, the Swedish one is much more about expensive furniture and upper class homes, where the Norwegian edition is more relaxed and showing more achievable looks, but still amazingly beautiful. I like the fact that the Swedish Elle Interiör has a great website with lots of big pictures and blogs that are updated often, but the Norwegian edition totally makes up for that with the quality of their magazine.

This month both editions landed simultanously in my mailbox, so they ended up next to eachother on my table. And the differences were so obvious it was almost a joke. First of all the Swedish edition had totally skipped the fact that Christmas is coming up, my guess is that they somehow want to "stand above" that. Their headlines are: Be first with the latest trends, party with a gold lining and the best of Nordic design. And their cover was a shot from their stall at the Hem 2010 fair that took place a few months ago, a dark (it looks much brighter on the computer screen) and messy picture full of super expensive furniture. It looks cool, but not inviting at all. The fact that the first thing you see is the back of a sofa doesn't help either, neither does the curtain coming in from the right side. The photo makes you feel shut out; uninvited, like you are supposed to stand outside and look in on all the cool stuff they have, wishing you could be there.

Then I took a look at the cover of the Norwegian edition. A light and simple photo with a mix of homemade and vintage things, cheap Ikea shelves and more expensive designer furniture like the Eames chair and cushions from Hay. The picture looks like a real home to me, especially with the piles of magazines stacked under the shelves. The headlines announces a competition, wish-lists from the staff at the magazine and holiday decorating tips, which should appeal to a lot of people and feels quite inviting. The big photo below is the cover without text as I couldn't find a bigger photo of the finished cover online. I found a tiny pic which I put above the big one, but it's hard to see what it really looks like there. Now that is the big problem with Norwegian Elle, they aren't exactly generous with big bloggable pictures.

Update! The lovely folks over at Elle Interiør read this and sent me a bigger version so we could do a proper comparison.

Now don't get me wrong, I really like both magazines. It's just that I wish they could take some inspiration from each other! Also, I'm a bit cranky today as I was offered to renew my subscription for Swedish Elle Interiör, and the offer they had on their website aimed towards new subscribers was much better than the one I got... Shouldn't loyal readers be encouraged in some way?

Please tell me your thoughts on these covers, which magazine appeals most to you?