Robert Rufino is joining the Elle Decor team as its new interiors editor. Rufino comes to the magazine from Architectural Digest, where he held the same role. Before that, Rufino served as a senior editor-at-large for House Beautiful.

“I am so excited that Robert is joining our staff – I have known him for years, and have admired his work for even longer,” said Elle Decor’s editor-in-chief, Michael Boodro, in a statement. “His design expertise is the perfect complement to our exceptional team, which also includes Anita Sarsidi and Cynthia Frank.”

Rufino’s appointment is effective April 29.

Welcome back to another edition of FishbowlNY’s weekly Cover Battle. This time around we have The New Yorker versus Elle Decor. The latest New Yorker features a great illustration about travel in the future. As you can see, even when we’re capable of blasting people out of a canon, there are delays.

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Elle Decor has named David Hamilton associate publisher, advertising. Hamilton comes to the magazine from Tasting Table, where he served as chief revenue officer since early 2012.

Prior to his time at Tasting Table, Hamilton was Details’ associate publisher. Previously he served as Interview’s publisher for two years.

“I am thrilled to welcome David to the Elle Decor team,” said Barbara Friedmann, Elle Decor’s vice president, publisher and chief revenue officer, in a statement. “He’s been a fan of the magazine for years and truly understands the magazine’s point-of-view. With his diverse experience and extensive contacts, he will be an invaluable asset to our team.”

Hearst Magazines is combing the editorial structure of Elle Decor, House Beautiful and Veranda and putting them all under the wing of Newell Turner. Turner is now the editor-in-chief of the newly created Hearst Design Group, which includes the three titles and their digital counterparts. Turner had been editor of House Beautiful since 2010.

Michael Boodro and Dara Caponigro will remain editors-in-chief of Elle Decor and Veranda, respectively, but the Design Group will share market and copy editors between them all.

David Carey, CEO of Hearst, praised the restructuring as a “fresh new approach,” while Turner added that by launching the Design Group, Hearst is “really changing how branded content is created.”

Pinterest — the social networking site that allows people to collect a bunch of crap in one place — is not only all the rage right now, it’s driving more and more traffic to women’s magazines.

Mashable reports that Pinterest is now the top social referrer for Marthastewartweddings.com and marthastewart.com, beating out Facebook and Twitter combined. The site is also on pace to become Country Living’s biggest source of referrals, and is in the top ten for Elle Decor, Self and House Beautiful.

That’s some serious news, especially considering that Pinterest is relatively new. It’s proof that not only is the site here to stay, it’s going to be a major player among the social networking heavyweights.

We bet some of you just pinned this, didn’t you?

Michael Boodro, the Editor-in-Chief at Elle Decor, is having some success in a category that hasn’t had much lately. WWD reports that Boodro is making progress with each issue:

[Boodro] managed to buck the sliding circulation and ad page trend that has plagued many of his peers during the first half, with newsstand up 6 percent to 92,275, despite a cover price increase to $5.99. Ad pages rose 11 percent to 524 and for the second half, Elle Decor published its largest September issue ever, up 26 percent.

The secret might be in Boodro understanding what the brand is and not trying to be anything more than that. “We’re not going to get Valentino or Karl Lagerfeld,” said Boodro. “They will go to Vogue or Harper’s Bazaar, but I don’t think we’re competing with say, Lonny, in terms of projects. There is a validity to beautiful pictures on paper and a hunger for that.”

Elle Decor Vice President and Brand Publisher Barbara Friedmann just sent out a letter alerting its advertisers of a scam. Apparently a company calling itself J.W. Grieves or JWG Media is sending fake invoices out, seeking to collect payment in the name of “E Decor.”

Friedmann says in the letter that the company “is not authorized to sell advertising space for Elle Decor and has no association whatsoever with us.”

Elle Decor is currently seeking legal action, so bad boys, bad boys, whachu gonna do? Whachu gonna do when they come for you?

Check out the letter after the jump.

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Food Network Magazine, Elle Decor and Architectural Digest all saw an improvement in ad pages for this year’s March issues, MinOnline is reporting.

The first themed issue for Food Network Magazine – Italian cooking/recipes – saw an almost nine percent increase in ad pages from March 2010, according to Publisher Vicki Wellington. Elle Decor got an even bigger increase, up 37 percent, from 80 ad pages last year, to 110 for March of this year. But Architectural Digest – with new Editor-in-Chief Margaret Russell on board, was the biggest winner of the three – ad pages were up a staggering 80 percent from 50 in March 2010, to 90 this year.

Now those magazines only need to repeat that success for the rest of eternity.

Who said the shelter category is dead? After finishing the year as the leader in ad sales for the category, Elle Decor said today that it was raising its rate base by 10 percent — from 500,000 to 550,000 — starting with its March 2010 issue. The magazine said it will deliver an average circulation of 588,000 through the first half of next year.

The Hachette Filipacchi pub also expanded its ad sales team, promoting Matthew Talomie to the position of advertising director and appointing Linda Tullio, formerly of the recently shuttered Metropolitan Home, New York manager for Elle Decor.

“Matthew has been a creative, resourceful member of our staff for the last two years; this new role will allow him to contribute even more to our success,” said Elle Decor publisher Barbara Friedmann. “Linda’s 11 years with Metropolitan Home have made her an invaluable resource; this new position allows her to share her expertise.”

And although Elle Decor nabbed the top spot in ad pages in the shelter category — for the first time in its 20-year history — its success is no doubt related to the closure of other shelter mags like Domino, Southern Accents and Metropolitan Home, whose “highest-quality subscribers” have been added to Elle Decor‘s readership, resulting in the rate base increase, the magazine said today.

Related: Breaking: Hachette Shutters Metropolitan Home

Metropolitan Home‘s December 2009 issue will be its last. Met Home‘s editor-in-chief Donna Warner and her staff will be leaving the company.

Publisher Hachette Filipacchi Media U.S. announced it will cease publication of the shelter magazine and focus its energy in the category solely on Elle Decor. President and CEO Alain Lemarchand said, “It is with a feeling of sadness that I make the announcement to close one of our magazines. However, we believe the best strategy in the upscale shelter segment is to boldly focus our resources and investment on Elle Decor, which is the ad-page leader within the U.S. market.”

Metropolitan Home and Elle Decor had comprised HFM U.S.’s Luxury Design Group led by Deborah Burns, who will remain with the company. As a result of the closure, Elle Decor will now become part of the ELLE Group.

Full press release, after the jump.

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