Kudos...

...to Richard Turley, creative director of the newly redesigned Bloomberg Businessweek. The design is editor-driven, meaning it's easy for readers to navigate and not a showcase for the designer's excesses of ego. Flourishes are at a minimum, befitting the traditionally most information-packed of the Big Three U.S. business "books." Yet a clear, sans-serif typeface for headlines and other display copy sets off the text with understated elegance. While seemingly influenced by the similar hyper-efficient use of space exemplified by The Economist, the rechristened former BusinessWeek - renamed after Michael Bloomberg acquired the venerable journal from longtime publisher McGraw-Hill Cos. - has a look distinctly its own.

While I'm on the subject, it won't be long before I ditch my Forbes subscription. After more than one costly yet hopeless run for the U.S. presidency, by which he diminished the collective fortune of himself and his siblings, Steve Forbes seems intent on peddling his hard-right ideology by the only means left to him, namely the pages of the magazine founded by his grandfather. Forbes has always been a conservative voice, but in the manner that the WSJ long was, its Flat Earth editorial copy running alongside some of the best investigative business journalism in America.

Not so now, alas. In the past two years Forbes has evolved into an ideological rag with scant coverage of, well, business. Having become a reactionary squawkbox, Forbes now competes not with Bloomberg Businessweek and Fortune but with Faux News and National Review. In which case I'll take my hard-right prattling straight - and better-written - from the likes of NR. A shame, since for most of my 35 years as a subscriber to the Big Three, Forbes was indispensible.