SPD GUEST EDITOR: October 2014 Archives

The Reader Comes First

The Reader Comes First

POST_ICON_BENSON.jpgBy Robin Benson / Editor, Past Print
The spreads below are from publications that I think were designed with the reader in mind. I've seen too many pages where it's clear that the words and images have been handled in a bland and uninspiring way which doesn't pull the reader into the story. Open any magazine and it's the images the reader looks at first, photos, art or graphics, then the headline and intro. If these elements work the reader starts on the text.
      Look at these spreads and see how the ingredients work; in the case of Writer's Digest there isn't even color. They all show clean, unfussy typography, partly because (apart from the Radio Times) they were all produced pre-PC, where design changes were more complex than just keystroking and looking at the changes on a monitor.

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twen: Big, Bold and Very Black (and White)

twen: Big, Bold and Very Black (and White)

POST_ICON_BENSON.jpgBy Robin Benson / Editor, Past Print
twen was a unique German magazine aimed at young adults. Started in 1959 as a bi-monthly, its success turned it into a monthly by September 1961. It was unique because of its Art Director/Editor Willy Fleckhaus, who created a magazine like no other.  I first came across it with issue nine while I was studying design and typography and collected nearly all the issues until the end in 1971. twen demanded attention with its large size and spreads almost 21- inches wide by 13-deep (about the same size as past American consumer titles Life or Look).
      In the early years twen was basically a mono title with some spot color, though the cover always had a color photo of a pretty female on a black surround. Color was slowly introduced, especially as a fold-out spread in each issue with a dramatic color photo on both sides. I used to put them up on my bedroom wall until I made a frame to drop in each month's pull-out.
      Fleckhaus used a six-column page grid ,although I never saw a complete page of text in this format. Long articles were usually four-column. The 12 columns across a spread meant he could tightly crop, enlarge and bleed a photo except for the last narrow column which would have some text and a headline, a letter or number. Black might have been Fleckhaus's favorite color, because spread after spread had large amounts of dark areas either of photos or black panels with a photo dropped into them. The middle editorial pages always had a sort of bleached-out feel with dark photos and empty white page space, but always working beautifully as they pulled you into the page's content.
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The Best Designed Magazine I Ever Saw

The Best Designed Magazine I Ever Saw

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By Robin Benson / Editor, Past Print
What's the best designed magazine you ever saw? Oh, that's easy you might say. OK, a few clarifications. I don't mean a title that has several knock-out spreads in the middle but one that works for the reader (that's who you do it for after all) from the cover to the last page. One that has a contents page that spells out the goodies on offer, and maybe a reader could find something immediately and turn to that page
    A magazine that has thought about the editorial design on those half pages front and back that have ads next to them, chosen a typeface with a readable point size for the text, and a display face that puts across the message easily, and combined with photos and graphics pulls the reader into a spread. A magazine where the design creates a natural flow to the editorial and all those typographic reader aids--bylines, intros, pull quotes, sidebars, captions, page numbers--have been well chosen and work. A design that isn't noticeable by the reader because all the elements blend together issue after issue so that the words and images are the only things that stand out.
    I expect your list is a bit shorter now but there are magazines, past and present, that are beautifully designed. The best one I ever saw was Quality, published by Time Inc. in 1987. The Editor was Landon Jones; the Assistant Managing Editor and art director of magazine development at Time Inc. was Mary K. Baumann; Nora Sheehan was the Art Director, and Michele McNally (now photography director at The New York Times) was the Picture Editor. Sheehan recently told me that the magazine was produced by an in-house magazine group at Time Inc. and the first issue, of about 100,000 copies, was mailed to a select upmarket readership. Everyone at Time Inc. liked it but the subscription returns probably weren't enough to justify its continuance.
    Below is the first (and only) issue, dated Winter 1987. I thought it worked from the cover onwards.
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Otto Storch: The Man Who Made Pictures Out of Type

Otto Storch: The Man Who Made Pictures Out of Type

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By Robin Benson / Editor, Past Print
Why was a male design student buying every issue of a leading woman's magazine in the late Fifties? To see what Otto Storch, Art Director of McCall's, was up to each month. He directed design at the magazine for 14 years starting in 1955, and was one of a group of designers loosely called the The New York School who created a visual buzz in print design during the 50s and 60s.
      Storch, to me though, was someone special. I always had an interest in typography and magazines and his work combined both beautifully (helped, incidentally, by a totally supportive Herbert Mayes, the Editor of McCall's). Combining images and type on the page seemed to me the best way of communicating the essence of the message to the reader, rather than have them as separate elements on a spread, which was so typical of consumer magazines back then.
      The integrated typography in McCall's pages seemed so effortless and the central well of editorial pages could feature spreads of fashion, food, celebrity, fiction and topical lifestyle themes with some just using type as the dominant graphic. Worth mentioning, I think, that some of the spreads had an almost negligible budget which released money for ambitious fashion or food features over several pages.
    
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This Week's SPD Guest Editor: Robin Benson

POST_ICON_BENSON.jpg[A note from the SPD Grids Editors: This is the second in our ongoing series of Guest Editors. Robin Benson is a longtime UK magazine art director who edits and produces the Past Print blog, which features rich collections of magazine covers and pages from the 1950s-80s. Robin will be sharing treasures from his collection along with smart commentary during the coming week. We're very happy and grateful to have his generous contributions to the SPD site.]

By Robin Benson / Editor, Past Print
The SPD have graciously let me guest edit the site for the next five days. My training as a longtime magazine designer was basically learned on the job. I'm from the lead type era when a type-scale and line-counter were extensions of every designer's hands. I got my first publication job way back in 1961 for a company producing house journals. My first Art Editor job was in 1969 on the Illustrated London News and I stayed as an AD (with a few ups and downs) on several titles until I took early retirement in the mid-90s. 
      I've always had a passion for publications and in particular typography. While studying at the London College of Printing I bought, with a friend, an old Albion proofing press (Google it) with print area of about 15 by 12 inches. Second-hand wood-type alphabets were dirt cheap and we stocked up on a lot them and bought some lead type (including Monotype Grotesk 215 and 216 and a font of 24point Standard Medium). We never used all this to make any money; we just liked messing around with a composing stick and type with the downside that it had to be put back in type case.
      The publication bug really got me as I started to collect magazines (plus any other print that looked pretty cool). Fortunately I saved plenty of this and in 2011 started my Past Print blog, where twen, Quality, McCall's and many other magazines are available for you to look at. I'm going to share these with you for the next five days, plus my thoughts on magazine design and art direction.


 

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