At Your Service is a weekly round-up of helpful and interesting service journalism. Inspired by the “ultimate in service and style” Vitals magazine. I follow the media and keep you in the know. *(And yes, technically none of these are actually “charticles” but who is keeping track)

For the first installment of AYS, I take a look at Antenna, Esquire UK and Condé Nast’s newish business-title Portfolio.

Antenna

Knowing that the new issue is fresh on newsstands I took the opportunity to feature the Winter 2008 issue of the sneaker and jeans centric men’s magazine. Antenna does an excellent job with their still-life product pages. This content makes up most of each issue (there was a cool Steven Alan profile in there too). I would compare their approach to the many product obsessed Japanese magazines (Including one that I have covered previously). The pharmacy still-life pages from this issue were amazing. In Antenna you find pages focused on tooth brushes for example, mixed right in the middle of pages with plaid shirts, puffer coats and electronics. I love it – very well done – bathroom reading for sure.

Esquire UK

The Brits do magazines very well. Not to say American publishing can’t hold it’s own, but the men’s magazines out of London are fantastic. The UK breed of Esquire had some terrific pages covering travel and business accessories. The pages are posh and user friendly, just like a Range Rover.

Portfolio

The feature article in the February 2008 issue was about how corporate America wants to you to be fat (I submit!). The article itself had lots of charts, facts, beautifully art-directed (or was it?) pull-quotes and of course pictures of burgers and drop cap’s made of French fries. Well played Mr. Art Director. The feature was good, but I choose to focus on a page from the front of book, what Portfolio calls “The Brief” (very punny counselor). The charticle is on the political giving of the hedge fund heavy and shrinking 10021 zip code.