Redesigning Bicycling

Our plan for the redesign was to break away from iconographic photography and take a less-produced approach to the shoots. In the past, we deliberately planned shoots with a single rider and low, flat vistas, with loads of blue sky. The cyclist's speed was controlled so that lighting was optimized and blur was virtually non-existent.

With the redesign, we want to embrace the motion and the environment. Foul weather, high tree lines or low sunlight won't necessarily disqualify a shoot from being worthy and therefore attempted. Additional lighting, if any, will be a challenge in that our goal is to have the appearance of only natural light but our hope is that result will be a more "outdoorsy" feel to the cover and interior photos.

This led us to the logo solution: Editor-in-chief Peter Flax frequently talked about how he loved the elegance of The Economist's logo. When we placed our logo in a box format, we discovered that no matter what type of cycling shot we used in the prototype, readability was a non-issue. It didn't matter if there was dappled light through tree branches, Bicycling was always easily readable. We also, liked the boxed logo's brandability.

With the the change in photo philosophy we needed to commit ourselves to abandoning the typical cover-line treatment of stacked lines down the left side of the page and thread the typography within the landscape of the photo. 

Inside: the major change is more experiential photography. The FOB is still service driven but we'll try to illustrate with images from the context of real bike rides. Features: will still have some conceptual treatments but there will be more real riding features. The GEAR section as well will see more photography in the context of a ride as opposed to a studio.

Overall Bicycling will now find beauty in the sweat, dirt, grit (and occasional road rash), that our readers know so well.

Photograph by Michael Robertson