NEW YORK Posted along a wall of Cindi Leive's office at the Conde Nast building are a dozen recent covers of Glamour, the magazine she has edited for the past decade, all showing a celebrity pinned against a white background. On most, the word Glamour appears in a lipstick shade of red or hot pink.

Then there are the covers from her competitors - InStyle, Marie Claire, Cosmopolitan, Redbook, Elle, Lucky and Women's Health - which also show celebrities against white backgrounds and red titles. If there really is a science to what sells, as editors generally believe, we can conclude that white backgrounds and red titles are an effective combination for moving magazines.

Except that Glamour's newsstand sales were down last year, by 17 percent through June, and (as submitted to the Audit Bureau of Circulation) 9.9 percent in the second half. Most women's titles were down. Part of the problem, it would seem, is that by exploiting a winning formula, fashion magazines have made themselves indistinguishable.

This is why readers can expect to see changes in the big March issues, most notably in Glamour and Harper's Bazaar, which are unveiling major redesigns. Glamour is the first out of the gate, with a cover that shows the actress Amanda Seyfried, in an embroidered Balmain top and Hudson jeans, posed casually in a bathroom with a wild yellow hair dryer in her hand. The title, too, is yellow, with a heavy shadow behind the letters.

"To me, yellow means breaking news," Leive said.

Geraldine Hessler, the design director, added, "It's happy, and it's fun."

With an audience of 12 million (including 1.85 million subscribers and average newsstand sales of 453,707), Glamour is often described as the most lucrative title within Conde Nast. Therefore, messing with its content carries risk. But the editors have changed far more than just the look of the cover, which certainly skews younger.

Features have moved to the front. Fashion has been sharpened and the look repackaged with a heavier focus on celebrities. A paparazzi shot of Sarah Jessica Parker illustrates a trend in colorful pants; shots of Sienna Miller and Kim Kardashian show big buns. That's buns, I said.

"We felt like Glamour had become a little too formulaic," Leive said. "If I'm bored, the reader probably is, too."

Redesigns are a way to engage readers and tempt advertisers, as seen in the subscriber version of the new Bazaar, which has a shot of Gwyneth Paltrow, her face obscured.

What's new in Glamour is an entire section of "Dos & Don'ts," the popular back-page feature that shows the right way and wrong way to wear florals or whites or jackets, now expanded at the front of the magazine.

In March it includes articles examining the phenomenon of preteen fashion icons and a funny essay by Mindy Kaling about the horrors of dressing for a red carpet. Features, including stories from women returning from war, are still uplifting and informative, but more often than not they are now written in the first person. Leive said she wanted to drop the idea of a "house voice," always there to swoop in with big-sisterly advice.