The talented Matthew Alderman made a comment on my post about redesigning the layout of First Things. He had some good ideas, but along the way, he mentioned one of the all-time great designs for a magazine: the art-nouveau journal Ver Sacrum from the late 1890s:
And it reminded me of an idea I’ve long had for a magazine’s design—had and rejected, but still burnished, from time to time, in that corner of the heart reserved for treasured but unworkable ideas.
Wouldn’t it be fun to vary the cover and the interior design from issue to issue, with each issue recreating—without irony—some classic and iconic moment in magazine graphics?
So, for instance, one issue that is all Ver Sacrum & art nouveau:
and another that is all old Galaxy sci-fi & Weird Tales:
and another that is all the cool elegance of early 1960s Look & Life:
and another that is pure Punch:
and so on.
Of course, you can’t actually sell magazines doing this. Conventional wisdom says, and probably rightly, that if there isn’t considerable visual continuity from issue to issue, no one subscribes: If readers can’t tell that it’s the same magazine as last month’s, then it isn’t the same magazine.
Ah, well.
October 22nd, 2009 | 2:17 pm
It wouldn’t surprise me if some similar dream has motivated the liturgists who have been foisting on us new approaches to worship every week. Count me out.
October 22nd, 2009 | 10:10 pm
I can scarcely believe that First Thing’s overtly political and partisan blogs attract so many posters while intellectually serious ones like First Thoughts attract so few. I would respond here more often if I felt competent to do so.
Mr: Bottum, the magazine’s layout has always seemed to me to match its high seriousness. That said, I love your idea.
And that said, please check in on the Gateway Pundit blog, a disgrace to the memory and work of your founding editor.
October 22nd, 2009 | 10:10 pm
I would direct FT readers to the new Commentary look under John Podhoretz. Each new cover is different, yet consistent in its rich, sometimes even stunning, look. At the same time, I’ve often looked inside magazines such as Wired and recoiled from what is often an act of overbearing hostility to the article itself. Perhaps if each article was attended by design that, like the best musicians, played the song, rather than demonstrated the egoism of “personal expression.” FT has an editorial spirit that, always and should, dominates the aesthetic fashion of the moment.
October 23rd, 2009 | 12:41 am
Design should be a “visual representation of reality.” So, ask yourself what FT really is and what it is aspiring to be, and compare the current design to those characteristics.
The content-rich cover is no-nonsense and emphasizes the great articles FT publishes.
Stylistically, I don’t think many would regard the ultra-big Gill Sans as being “with it.”
October 23rd, 2009 | 1:10 pm
As a long time reader, agree with Ken that the Gateway Pundit blog is far too partisan and basely political to be appropriate to this esteemed mag’s website. Teasing, smart and classy is good as demonstrated by most of the other blogs; GP is too National Review for this magazine.
Tim
October 23rd, 2009 | 2:47 pm
Wouldn’t it be fun to vary the cover and the interior design from issue to issue?
NO
Maybe for you, but not for the reader who knows just where to go and how to get there, and doesn’t want to waste any time getting there.
Bored with your job so soon?
October 23rd, 2009 | 3:24 pm
I think that such a magazine would be awesome, and surely could survive if run well. Remember that America is a huge and unimaginably wealthy country. You only need to attract a tiny fraction of the population to make money. If magazines like Cabinet, Lapham’s Quarterly, and The Thing can survive, surely your idea for a magazine would be able to do so as well.
October 23rd, 2009 | 3:31 pm
Louise writes: “Wouldn’t it be fun to vary the cover and the interior design from issue to issue? NO”
Well, yes, Louise, that’s the point of what I wrote. People who work with magazines—me, for instance—love an idea like this precisely because this is our job: laying out magazines. But we never actually do it—or, at least, shouldn’t do it—because, as I said, subscribers don’t like them. It’s one of the tensions inherent in magazines.
Apropos of some idea I had for a symposium—filling the whole middle of the magazine with different authors on the same topic—the great Midge Decter once remarked: “Editors love ‘theme issues’ of their magazines. Readers don’t.”
It’s advice like that which would keep me from doing something like ever actually using that design idea of changing designs with each issue. But, still, it’s a cool idea.
October 24th, 2009 | 11:24 am
Whew!
You had me scared for a minute, there.
October 25th, 2009 | 9:34 am
Despite the negative reaction here, this sounds like a good idea to me. Wouldn’t it be fun to see a different style each month? However you might compromise: vary the covers but keep the inside the same.
I understand why you have the old fashioned “no nonsense” covers you do, and can see why many readers appreciate it, but for heaven’s sake, First Things is not a peer-reviewed journal like Mind or the NEJM. This idea seems like giving something extra to your readers. Heck, if I were at a news stand and saw a magazine with a cover from Punch or the Saturday Evening Post, I’d pick it up for that reason alone.
Would First Things readers really not be intelligent enough to look beyond the cover? After all it would have the same title & usual bylines. Somehow this works for the New Yorker, right?
October 25th, 2009 | 6:19 pm
Oh, Paul, don’t tempt me. I, too, had your thought that this idea would appeal to more intelligent readers, rather than to less intelligent—but down that path lies madness.
October 27th, 2009 | 4:14 pm
I withdraw my objection as apparently unqualified.
October 31st, 2009 | 10:30 am
Be completely unrestrained with the back cover; consistent from issue to issue with the front cover.
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