
The Times launched Luxx, a luxury supplement in both print and digital formats, at the weekend. It’s clearly a way of taking a pop at the FT’s How to Spent It – and features two of that title’s creators in its make-up. Times editor Robert Thomson, who made his name expanding the FT‘s Saturday edition, which carried HTSI, has written an intro for the title and one of the writers is Lucia van der Post, who was the original editor.
Times magazine style director Tina Gaudoin – who famously revealed in the Guardian that her son’s first words were ‘daddy’ and ‘taxi’ as she ran the ‘SAS assault course’ that was her life editing Frank magazine in 1998 – is Luxx editor.
It’s interesting to look at the two digital editions, both of which use ‘page-turning’ software. However, HTSI seems to work more elegantly and its page layouts are more elegant too. Luxx looks like a cut-down version of a magazine, more there to put the ads online than the real magazine. The limited amount of text does make it easier to read however.
Unlike HTSI, Luxx has animated elements with the cover model seeming to bow her head and video sequences built into the pages.
Overall though, the simplistic look of Luxx and almost childish interactive elements seem more redolent of Dennis’s Monkey than a top-of-the-market freebie (except the ads, of course).