Magnetic properties of evaporated nickel films, deposited onto 75 mum thick 300 H Kapton substrates by evaporation at oblique off-normal angles of incidence, alpha were investigated by SQUID magnetometry. We found that, in the film plane, the direction of easy magnetization lay perpendicular to the incidence plane for films deposited at alpha < 50&DEG;. At large αs, the easy axis changed to the direction parallel to the incidence plane. The anisotropy, coercivity and squareness of the hysteresis loops increased with an increase in α. The results may be qualitatively understood from the presence of an inclined columnar structure with shape anisotropy governing the demagnetization of the magnetic fields. (C) 2004 Kluwer Academic Publishers.