The long-awaited HGTV Magazine will launch Oct. 4 but you can get a behind-the-scenes look at its creation Saturday night when one of the network’s star designers – Genevieve Gorder – hosts a one-hour special about the publication.
Genevieve – host of Dear Genevieve and a judge on Design Star – promises the new magazine will fill the niche left when Domino and other fantastic shelter magazines ceased publishing.
And Genevieve (shown below taping the special) says the magazine will provide “beautiful, accessible design” with all the tips and tricks to help readers achieve it.
“In the magazine, you really can get the nuts and bolts of what we’re doing, how we’re doing it and how to get it. It’s a resource guide and it’s a behind the scenes story,” Genevieve said. “It’s basically the conversation you don’t have time for on television. It can really unfold and proliferate into the pages of a magazine.”
“HGTV: The Making of Our Magazine” is scheduled to air at 7 p.m. ET/PT this Saturday. The special is documentary style and “captures the energy and excitement” as editors at Hearst Magazines (which is producing the publication) brainstorm ideas, plan photo shoots and interview the network’s biggest starts to create the magazine, HGTV says.
I’m breaking my interview with Genevieve into two parts. I am focusing today on what Genevieve had to say about the magazine and the TV special – and including a number of photos from her show and Design Star.
Stop back tomorrow for Part 2, when Genevieve talks about Design Star and her new love of Twitter.
Question: Genevieve, thanks so much for talking to The Design File. Tell us about the new HGTV Magazine.
Answer: Well, I think the magazine – in my personal, humble opinion – is filling a huge void in the market right now of offering accessible, approachable design to everybody. We have had some amazing magazines that did this awhile ago but when the home market folded, a lot of them disappeared. So that left this vacancy and I feel like what we’re doing is a really natural and a very simple progression of our brand and what we’re already doing. Why shouldn’t we have a magazine?
I’m really excited.
It’s an in-depth look at everything design, at all the design geekiness you can stand. And of course, it’s about our designers, what they do and how they do it. It’s a behind the scenes look at everything – television and design.
Q: So many great shelter magazines have closed. How do you think HGTV Magazine will survive?
A: Throughout this big crash in the home market and our advertising market and our economy in this country in general, the shelter magazines were the first magazines to go. They were supported by the economy and the home market and so they got a double whammy.
What’s different about our magazine is that we have a very powerful brand that’s lasted through this enormous recession because we’re offering exactly what people want at this time – and even in wealthier times. They want to know how to get the beautiful things for their homes, how to afford the beautiful things and do beautiful things in an approachable and accessible way.
That is just timeless. We’re supported by ad sales just like any magazine but we’re a brand bigger than the magazine already. We have this nice set of crutches to fall on if times get tougher.
As an interior designer, you can say the same thing. Many interior designers during this time haven’t been working. But those of us in television have never been busier – knock on wood – because people can’t necessarily afford to hire a designer but they can afford to watch one for free on TV. So it’s a good time for us.
Q: What can the magazine provide that television doesn’t?
A: It’s a lot more of the how-tos, a lot more information that you can’t give in 20 minutes on TV.
TV is a visual medium, of course, so you want to show all the powerful stuff but you have to crunch it into 20 minutes. In reality, the project is a five day or seven day process.
In the magazine, you really can get the nuts and bolts of what we’re doing, how we’re doing it and how to get it. It’s a resource guide and it’s a behind the scenes story.
It’s basically the conversation you don’t have time for on television. It can really unfold and proliferate into the pages of a magazine.
Q: What’s the show going to be like on Saturday?
A: Because we are this television brand first and foremost, it makes the most sense to use that medium to introduce the next medium. So we’re giving a bit of a documentary look at the making of a magazine.
It’s a visual wonderland of master boards and photography and prop closets. It’s stories of people you’re familiar with but may not know the back story of weaved into this documentary.
I think it’s going to be really, really beautiful and hopefully you’ll feel the warmth from the brand and from us as individual designers. That’s the whole point – to be accessible and welcoming.
Q: How is this kind of show different to do than Dear Genevieve and Design Star?
I don’t have to design anything, so it’s tremendously easier.
It’s really fun for me because I need variety to keep interested. If we keep doing the same thing every day, we get bored.
HG has definitely provided – and is probably the only venue on television that provides – designers with so much variety. There are so many different things we can do on the network now and in the magazine now that is kind of unattainable for us anywhere else as designers.
To do something like this and to explain the process and be a bit more technical and have the drama unfold and me not have to be a part of that is fantastic.
I don’t have any deadlines in this documentary. I’m just icing on the cake.
Q: Do you have a project in the first issue of the magazine?
A: I have a column in this month’s magazine. I am one of the experts who weigh in about a series of design questions.
People write in with design issues. This month I’m weighing in on a series of design controversies. It’s basically husbands and wives, partners having a disagreement about their living environment. They take a picture of their problem child and I basically vote. I weigh in and vote for one of their opinions and tell you why.
So it’s basically just design tips I’m giving as to why something may work or not work.
Q: Do you think the audience that loved Domino magazine will love the HGTV Magazine?
A: Yes. I do.
We all miss our Domino. We miss her.
I think the Domino lover was a lover of many design magazines but Domino was a backbone. And I think our brand and our magazine can easily fill that void as well. It’s going to be a different voice in a different way but the things that we all loved about that magazine are going to be represented in this one.
This is such a refreshing recurrence of beautiful, accessible design.
Thanks so much to Genevieve for offering so much of her time for this interview.
Make sure you tune tomorrow for Part 2, when Genevieve talks about Design Star, winner Meg Caswell, and using Twitter to communicate with fans.
