Magazine design

I started art directing magazines while living in New Orleans.

Firstly, with a start-up called Tribe, an alternative glossy that we tried hard to distinguish from the rest of the entertainment newsprint slop that was and still is around the Crescent City. To do this we tried to be locally focused but compete on a national stage with the big boys like Detours, Paper, Details and their ilk. I got to experience designing by the skin of my teeth, doing all the jobs of a design dept. including picture researcher, scan-boy, ad builder, tea maker - all of this before any actual page layouts. Oh I nearly forgot, I handled all the production grunt work too. I’m not complaining mind you, I learned a lot about about the design process and handling deadlines, etc.

The publication caught the attention of some well known news outlets, got some fantastic exposure from MTV and USA Today, won some design awards and we were on the brink…but we fell at the last post as our funding bottomed out. It was fun while it lasted and I met some great people who I remain good friends with.

My next jaunt at the publishing racket was in London. I did a stint art directing for High Life, British Airways’ in-flight magazine. Contract publishing is just as cutthroat as consumer, and although the budgets were so much higher (I had a picture researcher and went on photo shoots to exotic places, nice!) the politics and backbiting flowed freely. I got my name on the masthead of a few nice issues and returned to the States.

My magazine experience since then has been more as a freelancer, helping out at Maxim along with doing the odd football program and product catalogue. As with a lot of print work, the allure of the printed page has diminished and been cannibalised by the new-fangled internets and online editions of mags. Tactile sensations are not as appreciated as they once were and the days of ink covered thumbs, the smell of soy ink, and the overpowering fragrance sample all seem to be receding at an alarming pace.

But not so fast…just when you thought it was safe to cancel your subscription, here comes the ipad which has come to save InDesign from the same fate as Pagemaker and perhaps Quark. You would’ve thought that since the magazine publishing industry has barely a pulse these days, anything would be an improvement to its current business model. It remains to be seen what effect it will have, will it be the next cycle of evolution as the Mac was to typesetting?