As magazine publishing becomes more experimental in
terms of subject matter and content, so too do the printing
and finishing techniques that art directors and designers employ for their titles. From uncoated stock to the use of spot varnishes, the ways in which designers can differentiate their titles are many and varied.
Today, more and more publishers, art directors, and designers are taking advantage of these and becoming increasingly creative with the production of their magazines. Some—Half Empty magazine, for example—include a selection of stickers with each issue as an “extra” gift for the reader, while soDA magazine includes pull-out posters that in one issue were carefully planted between French-folded pages. The inclusion
of small postcards or small removable pictures is also common. Other titles—SHERBERT is one—come with hand-printed covers or use embossing on the covers and die-cut details both inside and out.
Whatever the printing technique or finish may be, it is the extra consideration involved in executing these interesting or unusual touches that makes the reader feel like they are buying something more than a disposable item that will sit on their coffee table for only a couple of weeks. These elements add value and a sense of the unique to a publication, and help turn them from throwaway items into something the reader wants to keep and treasure. Like a good book, these very niche titles become collectible, talked about, and recommended.
|
|
|
Art Direction: Oneil Edwards/Chetan Mangat (for issues shown here)
Publisher: Devon Dikeou
Country: USA
|
zingmagazine
New York–based Devon Dikeou was a practicing contemporary artist when she set up zingmagazine in 1995. As she explains,
“I was making artwork that provoked the participation of an audience, and I was very much interested in this idea of the space that existed between the artwork, the audience, and the gallery, and not editing that experience, or lack thereof. The magazine came directly out of that.
To this end, Dikeou and her team gave between 10 and 16 pages of each issue
to a featured artist or creative, letting them determine the nature of what would be published in each of their “curated” sections. This has been a distinctive feature of zingmagazine, so each issue is unique. “Initially, the magazine was printed black-and-white, but it is now color. However, we’ve always printed on matte paper,” adds Dikeou. “Now both matte paper and black-and-white printing proliferate in the printed world of both art and fashion publications, and are embraced as design vision rather than seen as a design or cost flaw.”
Images featured are chosen by the curators themselves, who also choose or generate an appropriate typeface to reflect and support their concept. “Our only design elements that are not a pure reflection of the curators are our front and back covers,” explains Dikeou. “Originally, letter correspondences of different historical noteworthies were featured on the cover, but now we use stock photographic images that conjure up the essence of the letter chosen for each issue with the letters themselves now featured
on the back cover.”
The idea for this cover concept was to democratize the importance of each curated project. By early 2006 zingmagazine had published or produced over 300 curated projects encompassing 6,000 pages, including eight books, four posters, five music CDs, and two unisex fashion satchels.
|
|
|
Art Direction: Various
Creative Direction: Martin Lötscher
Publisher: Martin Lötscher/Iris Ruprecht
Country: Switzerland
|
soDA
The founders of soDA wanted to confront existing magazine formats with something individual and more suited to meeting their creative requirements when they came up with the idea for their magazine in 1996. This they did, and soon after soDA gained public recognition, being described as “refreshingly different.”
Shown here is Issue 27. The thematic focus of all the magazines in 2005 was travel, and with this particular issue the publishers wanted to gain insight into the destinations they planned to travel to that year, naming the issue A Plan Is a Plan. “Generally speaking, we create the concept and the themes of the issues beforehand and then search for contributors,” explains Iris Ruprecht. “We look for people that have something to say about the subject we
have chosen for an issue.”
This issue is beautifully produced, with
an outer debossed cream cover and contrasting pink belly band. Inside sits the magazine along with a map and stickers. The magazine is printed on uncoated stock, save for the high-gloss inserted images,
and features many pullouts.
|
|
|
Art Direction: Kevin Grady/Colin Metcalf (GUM)
Publisher: GUM
Country: USA
|
LEMON
LEMON is the sister publication of GUM magazine, created by US team Kevin Grady and Colin Metcalf. Issue 1 (shown here) came out in February 2006, and it is published every six months. “Ralph Ginzburg’s Avant Garde Magazine, which ran from 1968 to 1971, is the ultimate inspiration behind the size and typography we chose for LEMON,” explains Metcalf.
“We wanted to create a more mainstream vehicle for the GUM sensibility that would also make sense to a few like-minded sponsors. We also skewed the personality of LEMON a little more toward the glamorous. So far, we’ve been able to use a more subtle sponsorship model, rather than a traditional page-advertising model. This integrates the advertising more seamlessly into the content, which is good for the sponsors’ images and good for the overall coherence of the magazine.”
For this launch issue, Guido Vitti shot the front cover and Dave Bradley shot the back. It also features the work of Norwegian student Ronja Svenning Berge. As a tip of the hat to Ginzburg’s magazine, the LEMON team modified Avant Garde for the headline face, by creating alternate characters with sharp angles. For the body copy they sought out a restrained serif face with plenty of character, deciding on Alias Union by Gareth Hague. The cover was printed on a high-gloss sheet, with a matte-laminate treatment and a spot aqueous varnish giving it a sumptuous finish. On the yellow insert cards they used a lemon-scented varnish on a matte-coated sheet as a scratch-and-sniff feature.
|
|
|
Art Direction: The Kitchen
Publisher: Graphite Media
Country: UK
|
The End
The End is one of London’s most popular clubs. In 2005 London-based designers
The Kitchen were asked by The End to put together a fanzine-style publication for the club, featuring articles about the DJs that play there, club nights, and lifestyle. There was no design brief as such, but The Kitchen was asked to create a publication that did not look like something produced for a club.
Simplicity became the key to the design, with most of the fanzine printed in two colors. This makes it a magazine that has
a fuss-free, classic feel to it. The cover image is an illustration by UK artist Will Barras. It has been printed using foil block in blue, which is set off well against the grayboard it is printed on. The magazine
is extremely rich visually, packed with a variety of illustrations of the featured DJs, created by, among others, David Walker, Sam Green, and Joel Clifford.
|
|
|
Art Direction: BB/Saunders
Design: BB/Saunders
Publisher: Warren Beeby/Andrew G. Hobbs
Country: UK
|
Centrefold
Centrefold was originally conceived as a selling tool for one individual photographer, Andrew G. Hobbs, but soon grew beyond that into a magazine in its own right, featuring work from other contributors.
The magazine is made up of a series of interleaved pages—or “posters”—that feature the work of young image-making talent. It is designed to work as a sequence, like any other publication, but also allows each “centerfold” to be removed from the publication to exist outside of the context
in which it was originally placed.
“Sometimes the images on these pages are completed by viewing them as posters, and others are deconstructed or cut in half to appear with other images or graphics in
the magazine,” explains Designer Martin Saunders. “The idea is intended to be playful, and presents endless possibilities with each new issue. I’ve always been fascinated by images that have been removed from magazines to be displayed elsewhere, giving them another life away from the original publication.”
It is of a larger format, is unbound, and is limited to a print run of only 500 copies, which are distributed in selected bookstores and galleries. Photographer Andrew Hobbs has been the main contributor, but Centrefold has also included the work
of Mario Godlewski, Tony Gibson, Julie Bentley, and Chris Turner.
|
|
|
Art Direction: Warren Jackson (Fifty-One)
Design: Warren Jackson (Fifty-One)
Publisher: John Brown Citrus Publishing
Country: UK
|
Carlos
Carlos is Virgin Atlantic’s in-flight magazine for its Upper Class cabin passengers. The brief from Virgin Atlantic to Art Director Warren Jackson and his team was to “reflect Virgin Atlantic’s philosophy of innovation,” and the magazine’s distinctive design sees a departure from the normal glossy newsstand format of the majority of in-flight magazines. Its small format—oversized A5—uncoated brown-card cover with subtle use of spot varnish, off-white uncoated stock for the inside pages, and pale-blue typeface all make for a lo-fi, but classy publication with an edge.
When first published it was quickly picked up by British Vogue as a must-have, and has since become a much talked about, difficult to get publication. “With Carlos we wanted to provoke the idea in the passenger that they were part of a ‘club,’” explains Jackson, “that they had stumbled across this fanzine-style, literary ‘scrapbook’ belonging to a fictional man called Carlos and they were
to become privy to his thoughts, whimsies, and interests.”
Carlos contains no photography at all—except on the advertisers’ pages, which also use a glossy stock—and is made up solely of hand-created illustrations. The covers have all been by the artist Jonathan Schofield, and the inside pages have featured the work of Stanley Donwood, Holly Johnson, and Johan Malkovich as well as texts by Woody Allen, Pete Robinson, and Truman Capote. What is also unusual is that there is no Virgin Atlantic branding in the publication. The typefaces used are Mrs Eaves family, Hoefler Text family, and occasionally Helvetica for spoof classified ads.
|
|
Don't miss the next Graphic Design article on Graphics.com. Get the free Graphics.com newsletter in your mailbox each week.