• by whitley , August 3, 2005

Dwell is exactly the kind of design magazine I want. It combines quirky stories, a little high-brow architecture, modern design product reviews, and low-cost, do-it-yourself ideas. The magazine launched in 2000, just before the onslaught of mass-market décor books hit.

While refurbishing her home in Mill Valley, Calif., Lara Hedberg Deam, the editor in chief, decided that she didn't have a magazine to articulate the voice of her design style. So this direct marketing heiress decided to invest her money in a 225,000-count direct marketing test to see if her particular tastes existed in a larger psychographic. The response was overwhelmingly positive, and now Dwell magazine has defined a new modernist vision that combines the simplicity of functional design and the clean lines of modern architecture.

What makes Dwell an enjoyable read is its strong point of view. The magazine defines a warm and accessible modernism, and offers personal stories that are about real people's homes. The July/August issue, which features modern waterfront homes, has a cover shot of a couple standing on a dock looking over a crisp, cold lake. It is clean and inviting, and this summer vibe holds throughout the book, offering cooling stories about pool houses and a gorgeous feature well about waterfront homes from Hawaii to Wisconsin.

The front of the book offers a cleanly designed presentation of useful new home design products (i.e., blenders for summer fruit drinks), a good roundup of new buildings, and design and architecture books. One of the most surprising aspects of this book is that the writing, even in the product descriptions, is funny and clear.

In the "Off the Grid" section, the story about Millennium City--an environmentally friendly commune outside of Tokyo that is based on the concept of a greenhouse--is particularly appealing. There is also a useful feature about storage and closet organization, a subject that everyone seems to be talking about as the physical salve to our crazy modern lives. While the home design features are beautifully photographed and laid out, they get a little repetitive in terms of structure. I'd much prefer one or two of these features and more do-it-yourself ideas.