There isn't "one design to rule them all". There are designs that fit the objectives of the business. The objectives of most magazines is to sell as much adver

There isn't "one design to rule them all". There are designs that fit the objectives of the business. The objectives of most magazines is to sell as much advertising as possible, typically through CPM. I'm not a designer, but I'm guessing it would be hard to design a print or web magazine that featured loads of advertising and still looked minimalist. The ads are screaming for attention, so the content has to scream for attention alongside them. Magazines which don't tend to make most of their revenue from CPM advertising have more layout flexibility. The Economist comes to mind.