Editor's letter.(changes in The Magazine Antiques)(Editorial)

We have a new look for ANTIQUES this month, the work of our art director Edward "Trip" Emerson, who deserves many more compliments than he would ever allow me to set down here. Rather than praising his inspired art direction, past and present, I will have to settle for pointing out his current innovations in the magazine's design. As a publication devoted to beautiful things beautifully portrayed, ANTIQUES has long needed a little more breathing space for its images. Instead of being pressed up against the text, the illustrations now have a pleasing environment where words do not crowd them. And, happily, the words flow across the page in a more relaxed and inviting way as well.

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One of the great strengths of this magazine lies in the wide range of subjects it gathers between two covers--from modernist glass in this issue to early American folk portraits to the story of an eighteenth-century chair that has become a twenty-first century glamour-puss. The introduction of a uniform style for all of the headlines and other forms of display type (such as pull quotes and subtitles) helps the magazine hang together visually while allowing it to remain thematically diverse.

These are the kinds of changes that readers should enjoy without having to notice. I call attention to them because they have made it easier to introduce a few editorial changes. To begin with, we have Gregory Cerio's sparkling supplement on the antiques scene in New Orleans. ...