Face Up: inter national ist

This Month: inter national ist

Mission: “Dedicated to the business needs and challenges of international marketing and media professionals as they participate in multinational branding.”

Concept: B-to-B magazines are not known for being sexy. “Whoever wrote the rule that trade publications have to be ugly?” says Deborah Malone, publisher of inter national ist (yes it’s spelled that way). “We serve one of the sexiest business sectors worldwide—marketing and media. We figured that we’d better look ‘breakthrough.’” And part of looking “breakthrough” involves minimal cover lines. The magazine’s cover usually includes green “tabs” filled with cover lines, a futuristic “Nillenium” font and a bright orange border.

Production: For its “State of the Industry” issue, creative director April Garston was given a number of talking points from its cover story to work with. “It was about the ‘reengineering’ of the business model,” says Garston. “So I started to work with concepts like ‘engineering,’ ‘hard hats’ and ‘DNA’ to represent it.” But when an early version of the article included a quote about the industry being “cracked but not broken,” Garston’s direction changed, and the cracked egg—a stock image—was born. Says Malone: “Is the industry broken or is it being reborn?”

Our design panel says: “Interesting graphic…It’s not for your average Joe who’ll say ‘I don’t get it’… I don’t get it. What is the concept? Is the state of the industry a hatched chick? An omelet? This is a cover at war with itself. I find the narrative baffling—I don’t know what the neatly cracked empty egg is supposed to mean and there’s no help from the cover lines—but it would be a sparsely elegant and spooky-feeling cover if it wasn’t being mucked up by the intrusive boxes …What a magazine would look like if created by a Web designer.”

The Panel: Charles Brucaliere, Forbes; Jandos Rothstein, Governing; Thoralf Tollefsen, Northstar Travel Media; Mayumi Hudgins, M&C; Daniel Stark, Stark Design

Have a unique “cover” story? Contact Folio: senior editor Dylan Stableford at dstableford@red7media.com.

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http://www.inter-national-ist.com/ |