[Viewpoint] PCT's continuing evolution

You’ll notice some changes to PCT this month. About six months ago, our staff began discussing the need to freshen up the look of the magazine. We last did an intense redesign in January 2000 and continued to make changes to the design and editorial content along the way. But we decided that it was now time to give the whole magazine a new look.

Some of the design changes include:

• In the past, PCT has run boxes on the pages around features and departments. We’ve eliminated them; this allows more room for text.

• The magazine has a new red and black color palette. We hope this makes it easy to find departments and columns within the magazine.

• We commissioned an artist to create icons that add color and visual interest within departments. This will help readers easily identify various departments.

And speaking of departments, we’ve added several new ones, including Five Questions (page 24), Pest Profile (page 26), Market Watch (page 105) and Book Review (page 114).

Pest Profile is a full page dedicated to specific pests — including a full-color photo, identification characteristics and more. Our new Market Watch department will feature snapshots of trends and information affecting PCOs in different regions of the United States.

Five Questions and Book Review are two departments that will run frequently. In Five Questions we ask five questions of pest management professionals and others in the industry about their experiences, and this month’s inaugural column features veteran PCO Bernie Spivack. PCT chats with him about the pros and cons of operating a one-man business. Book Review is designed to make readers aware of some of the best books out there about life, running a business, personal growth, etc. Visit www.pctonline.com/marchbook to enter into a drawing to win a copy of this month’s book, Five People You Meet in Heaven. Continue to watch the pages of PCT in the next few months as we introduce other new departments.

We’ve made some changes to our stable of columnists as well. Jean Seawright and Bud Brewer, who in the past have written about human resources and marketing respectively, have agreed to write features for the magazine. This will allow each of them to dive into a particular topic of interest in a more in-depth fashion in the future.

I’d like to thank PCT Art Director Andrea Vagas for the time she spent designing the following pages. It’s easy for the editorial staff to know what we want but it’s sometimes difficult for us to put it into words. Andrea got inside our heads, figured out how we wanted it to appear and made the magazine look great.

We hope you enjoy this new issue of PCT. As always, please contact anyone on our staff if you have comments you’d like to share about the magazine.

Jodi Dorsch is editor of PCT magazine.