Readers will notice a few changes in the format of the February number.  This is the first major overhaul since I became editor in 1985, and even a reader as visually impaired as the editor will note the larger and clearer type, the more balanced layout, and—if I may rhapsodize—the sense of spaciousness.  None of the changes is in itself radical: The typeface is only a clearer and simpler cousin of our previous font, and we have avoided most of the more recent design clichés that make it easy to confuse many magazines with advertising circulars or websites.

I am grateful to our friend and contributor Gregory McNamee and Carole Thickstun for making it possible to carry out a thoroughgoing change in a comparatively short time and to Scott Richert and Aaron Wolf for the endless and painstaking adjustments that translated a beautiful concept into a working template.  If you have compliments to make, we’d be delighted to hear them.