Alternative Weeklies: January 2010 Archives

Jay Vollmar has been the art director of Westword for 10 years. Check out his website here. Vollmar comes from a rock poster background (his website has examples of his highly-cool poster work). He describes his cover design process: "I usually apply the same principles to Westword covers as I do to poster projects. It starts with trying to boil a story down to its basics and then illustrate that in a simple image that can grab you from across the street. I just try to basically capture the vibe of a story much like I do with a band, the specific lyrics, words or details aren't as important or workable as the overall theme."

Like his fellow art directors at alt weeklies Riverfront Times and the Dallas Observer (see previous SPD posts), Vollmar is self-creating the best of his covers, with a mix of stock imagery, highly-art directed photography, and his own illustration. His covers are a weekly series of gig posters as publication design, drive-by graphics for quick and immediate attraction and consumption. They're smart, original, high-energy, and incredibly engaging; this is publication cover design at its best.

We've got 10 of the best recent covers from Westword and Jay Vollmar, on the following page.

(Cover above): October 20, 2009. Photograph by Anthony Camera, photo illustration by Jay Vollmar. The cover story is about a controversial Denver bill that targets unlicensed drivers and sells their cars at auction.

As free papers, these weeklies are removed from the restrictions of newsstand sales and subscription renewals. WIth improved printing and reproduction capabilities (although their art directors would probably disagree about the quality), these papers have been able to get much more sophisticated in their cover designs, now oftentimes rivaling and surpassing other, slicker publications in their regions. There is some brilliant publication design going on under the radar at many of these weekly papers; it's a highly-fertile ground for creativity and originality.

Carlson's best covers at Riverfront Times are complete self-creations, made with stock imagery and Carlson's own technical skills. What photography he uses on the cover is generally by former staff photographer Jennifer Silverberg, and is made-to-order to Carlson's creative direction. "My cover philosophy is object-oriented. I like to go for visual solutions with clarity and directness that render text all but unnecessary. I tend to avoid decorative type choices and use type that just is, and let the words (when we have them) do their job."