ABOUT US
Meet the Staff
Brian Michael Lawrence, editor, holds degrees in graphic design and business management from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. His magazine work has merited awards from the Society of Professional Journalists, CRMA, CASE, the AIGA, Financial Week, and the Society for Technical Communications. He has been involved with Style magazine since 1992, holding positions as art director and creative director, before being named as editor. Brian is a member of the American Institute of Graphic Arts, and his voluteer affiliations include co-chairing the1844 Committee at the Maryland Historical Society, and Maryland Art Place, where he has served on the Board. 
Senior editor Laura Wexler (http://www.laurawexler.com) is the author of the narrative nonfiction book Fire in a Canebrake: The Last Mass Lynching in America (Scribner, 2003). She teaches in the graduate creative writing programs at Johns Hopkins and Goucher College, and is one of the creators and producers of The Stoop Storytelling Series (http://www.stoopstorytelling.com). She is also a member of the Baltimore Improv Group (http://www.bigimprov.org).
A native of Philadelphia, senior editor Joe Sugarman moved to Baltimore in 1991 and, despite the lack of good cheesesteaks, has refused to leave. He is the author of City Smart: Baltimore, an opinionated guidebook to Charm City. (Avalon, 2000) Previously, he was editor-in-chief of Chesapeake Life magazine and senior editor at Mid-Atlantic Country magazine. He also wrote about recreation and regional travel for Microsoft’s online city guide, Sidewalk.com in Washington, D.C. His freelance writing has appeared in the Washington Post, The Sun, Smithsonian’s Air & Space magazine, Washington Flyer, and other regional and national publications. An avid traveler, Joe has visited and written about his experiences in Asia, the South Pacific, Europe, Central America, and locations throughout North America. Before embarking on a career in journalism, Joe was promotions coordinator at the Maryland Science Center, a position that required, among other duties, to attend parades and festivals dressed as T. Rex, the museum’s dinosaur mascot. Joe holds a bachelor’s degree from the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University.
Internship Opportunities
Style is interested in students with strong writing and customer service skills, who wish to learn about the process of planning and producing a magazine. Click for more information. History of Style
Style was founded in the early 80's as a four-color, glossy spin-off of the weekly Baltimore Jewish Times. Prior to that, the Baltimore Jewish Times was publishing occasional advertising supplements aimed at giving weekly newspaper advertisers an opportunity to showcase their merchandise and image in a four-color glossy format. These magazine-style supplements focused on single subjects such as fashion, home design or bridal. Because the glossy format proved a success among local retailers, publisher Chuck Buerger and his staff decided to spin it out to an additional controlled-circulation readership separate from the Jewish Times readership. In 1989, the first Style magazine began arriving in 30,000 mailboxes in specified zip codes in Baltimore city and Baltimore county. 
By 1992, Buerger was ready to take the final step in Style’s evolution from ad supplement to consumer lifestyle magazine: He hired art director Brian Michael Lawrence and editor Kay Hudgens MacIntosh and charged them with making Style a full-fledged lifestyle magazine. Over the next year, the new hires, with the publisher’s backing, made numerous changes, including: — Establishing a regular bi-monthly publishing schedule. — Moving from single focus issues (all fashion, or all home design, for example) to issues that included the proverbial “something for everyone.” Cover packages would continue to concentrate on Style’s traditional subject areas-- bridal, fashion or home design. — Expanding distribution through newsstands and by subscription. MacIntosh and Lawrence also began building a reliable stable of writers and photographers. “It was a very exciting time,” recalls editor MacIntosh. “For a journalist, it was a dream job, to have a publisher say, ‘here, make this a real magazine and make it the best it can be.’ We started almost from scratch and asked, what would people like to see in a lifestyle magazine, what’s not being provided by other media.” “We were able to lure top notch photographers to the project,” says art director Lawrence, “and to print the book using first-rate color separations on high quality glossy paper. The look we created immediately helped us to stand out.” 
The basic bimonthly format has remained intact, although the cycle of cover subjects has expanded to include such special issues as “Women over 40,” “Baltimore Countryside,” and “Favorite Foods.” The success of the Style formula, and the emphasis on quality writing and photography, was recognized in 1996 when the City and Regional Magazine Association honored Style with a third-place award for overall excellence, behind Philadelphia and Boston magazines. Today, Style is mailed to some 45,000 homes, including a growing number of paid subscribers, and is sold on approximately 175 newsstands throughout Maryland and the District of Columbia. Founding publisher Chuck Buerger died in November of 1996 and was succeeded by his son, Andrew Buerger. |
