10
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WINTER 2014
FROM THE SAFETY STOP
//
P U B L I S H E R ’ S N O T E
A
s we begin a new year and plan where we
might go, it is worthwhile to recall where we
have been. With regard to Alert Diver, four and
a half years ago it was a modest publication in
terms of production value and design but was full of valuable
information on dive safety, research and medicine. After all,
these topics encompass the mission of Divers Alert Network
and are the central elements of DAN’s outreach to its members.
In the summer of 2009 the decision was made to
provide a better and more sophisticated member
benefit. All of the nearly 250,000 DAN members
receive a complimentary Alert Diver magazine each
quarter, and DAN made a conscious decision to
integrate that core editorial content into a more
attractive package, highlighting the very best in
graphic design and production value. Additionally,
we decided to provide fresh articles that might speak
to other passions our members share. Dive travel,
underwater photography and marine conservation
issues became part of the editorial mix.
The new Alert Diver has become a massive
success, and for that I am grateful to a dedicated and
talented staff, brilliant contributors and an engaged
readership eager to share their experiences in
columns such as Member to Member and DAN Was
There For Me. One of my favorite sections of the
magazine is Letters to the Editor, because it provides
real-time input about what our readers
like — and sometimes don’t like — about
Alert Diver.
In this issue, our 18th since the
redesign, you’ll see the magazine is
physically a bit larger and the cover
design slightly different. While reluctant
to mess with success, we believe there is
always room for improvement, and the
size of the magazine was an easy tweak.
We’re actually using the same size roll
of paper we have always used, but now
there will be less trimmed off and sent
to recycling. We used the extra space on
each page to increase the type size by a
point to enhance ease of reading.
Back when we
decided to make
Alert Diver the
size it was, we
imagined readers
might carry it
with them as
they traveled and
perhaps leave
copies behind on
liveaboards and
at dive resorts
they visited. We
purposely made it relatively small so the magazine
would fit in a diver’s carry-on or backpack. Readers
would be the Johnny Appleseeds of dive safety,
propagating good information throughout the world
of recreational diving by the simple expediency of
leaving issues behind for others to read. Or so we
thought. We have since learned from our reader
surveys that most of our members collect their Alert
Diver magazines, keeping them in their home libraries
and on their coffee tables, just as they do with back
issues of National Geographic. That’s good company
to be in, and we are grateful for the loyalty, but it
meant we needed another solution to make sure the
dive safety information that is so much a part of each
issue would be available to our traveling readers.
TABLET EDITION
Given our desire to have back issues quickly and
easily available to our members and recognizing that
nobody is going to schlep a dozen issues along with
them on vacation, an electronic option was the way
T E X T A N D P H O T O S B Y S T E P H E N F R I N K
Reflections
STEPHEN FRINK
STEPHEN FRINK
