FOLIO: Personalities -- The Blog People Page

Jessica Helfand takes on farming magazines, from 1878 to DJ Stout’s redesign of Dairy Today, on Design Observer.

Wig Wag's 1988 launch came within a month of Spy's, but the latter is better remembered. Spy is memorialized in books and on Web sites, it's editors have gone on to su More...

I’ve been reluctant to write about Janet Froelich for fear of coming off like a freshman painting student conceding some small admiration for the work of Picasso. Her art direction of the New York Times magazine is legendary, as well as a continuous source of inspiration to the publishing design community. So, I won’t blubber on much.

Nevertheless, I thought Sunday’s cover package was spectacular. Using a relatively restrictive vocabulary of well-worn iconography (maps, globes) She and photo illustrator Kevin Van Aelst push the language in all kinds of unexpected and innovative More...

Lots of buzz online about the termination of editor Dave Seanor over this cover, which refers to a thoughtlessly stupid remark by golf anchor Kelly Tighman.

It’s worth noting that the controversy over this cover is inextricably wrapped up in its conceptual quality. The insipid stock image brings nothing to the package that isn’t explicit in the headline. The noose may be a loaded cliché, but that doesn’t mean it’s not just as tiresome on a magazine cover as any other over-used icon.

Now, clichés have their place, and all visual communi More...

Print has a short behind-the-scenes look at New York’s recent section reshuffling:

There’s been some sadness around this office that New York decided to get rid of their High Priority feature, a half-page graphic that opened their listings section each week. Created by a different designer every issue, High Priority showed off the talents of designers new and established, with the only restriction being that the design be done in red, black, and white.* Chris Dixon, the magazine’s design director, jokes tha More...

We closed up Germanica week at Designing Magazines with a look at a 1965 Der Spiegel which has a design suspiciously similar to the look Time sported through the earlier half of the last decade.

Linear layout throughout—with one story flowing into the next, diminutive Futura headlines, and identically unwavering three-column grids, as in these spreads from 1965 (Der) and 1964 (Time). And of course, both magazines use a cheerful red frame on their covers, a device that remains constant More...

Every once in a while you come across a magazine so specialized that it just takes your breath away—how wonderful when it’s a consumer title to boot.

Airports of the World, which sits on the old stump at the crossroad of airplane and architecture geekdom, is one such glossy, which I couldn’t bring myself to buy but photographed with my cell phone at B. Dalton’s. To me, the British magazine promises all the excitement of a 14-hour layover, and very nearly delivers it, with sleepy-time articles and layouts as constipated as you’d be after three consecutive concourse meals, but clearly someone is reading it and More...

4c is a new English-language annual from Belgium dedicated to the proposition that what’s important in life is only skin-deep. This is appropriate I suppose—the glossy, a new foray into publishing from Techni-Coat International, a manufacturer of plastic coatings knows the value of the superficial. If there is no there there in 4c—the magazine bounces from travel to fashion to industrial design to self-promotion (The first feature—and there’s no FOB to speak of—profiles the company’s vice president), at least it’s all done quite stylishly. 4c fits into the class of new magazines doggedly determined to prove the value of print by doing things with va More...

Most magazine designers have come across references to the legendary Aspen—a multimedia-filled “magazine in a box” published between 1965 and 1971—though few have actually seen a copy. In addition to articles, Aspen included phonograph records and several issues came with Super-8’s. (For our younger readers, Super-8 was kind of an early Quicktime.) Well, the folks at Ubu have provided a tantalizing look at some of those Aspen pages. The images are not as large as a designer would ask for, and some of Ubu’s attempts at recreating the magazine as Web pages fall flat, but they do provide m More...

The arrival of a new Esopus is always cause for celebration. The current issue, which arrived on my doorstep on a recent afternoon, is no exception. What makes this magazine so remarkable?

Esopus uses-really uses-the tools of mass-production printing to create a publication that is a carefully orchestrated experience: a delight for mind, eyes and fingers. Subscribing to Esopus is a bit like receiving a quarterly artist's book with pockets, pullouts, changes in paper quality, gloss and translucency. These methods don't seem tacked-on, but are integral to the way the magazine tells stories-which are only occasionally traditional columnar narrative More...

I've long felt that non-profit organizations and private industry should work together more diligently to produce decent swag for graphic designers. A template for successful products that might emerge from such public/private partnerships is @issue: The Journal of Business and Design, which is written and designed by The Corporate Design Foundation and printed on paper donated by Sappi.

@issue is by no means a great magazine-I don't miss it between the random issues I pick up at paper shows and ADC events, (and I haven't bothered to subscribe to the free More...

NPR's Marketplace did an intriguing piece on Brass magazine recently. Their report made the magazine sound like a sophisticated and sincere version of Young Money, which I wrote about a while back. (I had used the example of YM to look at how fuzzy editorial goals can result in a design that's equally unfocused.) My post inspired spirited debate, so I wanted to take a look at Brass for a bit of contrast. While Marketplace was very positive about the magazine, they were more inter More...