Exclusive peek at the Intelligent Life’s spring edition

Inexplicable: due to some error on the Economist’s Intelligent Life team part I was able to download the full spring issue of this fine quarterly onto my iPad, before it was even finished. No hacking involved, I simply tapped the “download” button, while browsing the Intelligent Life app.

The obvious perk is the exclusivity, as I am probably the only (?) member of so-called general public to check out in advance the exceptional—as usual—articles, essays and everything else.

This is not a finished product, but in itself that’s quite special. It offers me a unique snapshot of the design process: some images are only low-res, adverts are still-to-be-added and there are numerous comments, I am presuming from the designer or art director.

Initially I assumed this is the final product, maybe the QA was botched, I thought. I posted a whining tweet about it—as you do—and the editor Tim de Lisle emailed me, curious as to what am I talking about, since they haven’t published the spring edition yet. Knowing the IL team wouldn’t release the magazine without making sure it’s of top quality I find reassuring.

I hope the IL team won’t get crossed with me for publishing the cover of the spring issue—after all the leaks are in fashion lately (I won’t publish any other pages).

By the way, the best thing about IL for iPad is that’s it’s completely free. As always, I will be looking forward to the next, summer issue, knowing I will have to wait for it longer than everybody else (now, that’s the sad part of it).

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