Reentering The Information Age

Folio: The Magazine for Magazine Management, Nov 1, 2002

Byline: Critique by Robert Newman, creative director, Real Simple.

Information Week CMP Media LLC Editor-in-chief/CMP Senior VP: Bob Evans VP and Publisher: Mike Friedenberg Editor: Stephanie Stahl Creative Director: Michael Gigante Design Consultant: Robert Priest Mission: To enhance the readers' experience by making the publication easier to navigate.

COVER

InformationWeek is a magazine that needs to stand out in the clutter of an office desk, not a newsstand, and the new design achieves that with great effect. The old cover look and logo were generic and clumsy. With the switch to upper and lower case and the addition of a second color, the new logo has become much more distinctive and readable. The teaser heads at the top of the page give a sense of substance and import, and they are nicely separated from the rest of the imagery. The bold illustration by Christoph Niemann is smart and energetic, and the strategic placement of coverlines imparts an overall feel of news and urgency. The magazine has a strong tagline - Business Innovation Powered by Technology - and it has wisely been given much greater prominence. The choice of new fonts is brilliant. They're modern and bold and feel perfectly fitted to the subject matter. This is a classic case of the design and the typography both reflecting and advancing the content of the magazine and giving it a must-read sensibility.

TYPOGRAPHY & GRAPHICS

A new and more open text font with extra leading and the addition of white space between columns and gutters make the magazine a much easier read. The ham-fisted, scattershot approach to typography and layouts of the past has been scuttled in favor of a bold, structured format. A rigid and very limited color palette has been applied throughout, but the color choices are sophisticated and designed to blend well with photographs, illustrations, and graphics. Attention was paid to the charts and graphics, which have been streamlined and modernized, and made much more readable and distinctive.

ACCESSIBILITY

Section identities, formats, and the architecture have all been enhanced and focused. The contents pages have been turned into an energetic and lively billboard for the material inside the magazine. The front sections have been smartly and boldly signed; rules, sidebars, and column-width changes organize and highlight the material. The cover feature is given strong graphic play and a full-page illustration that says, "This is an important story." The back of the book, which previously was a confusing jumble of columns and charts, has been reorganized and given a new, strong graphic identity.

SUMMARY

This is a completely cosmetic redesign. With the exception of the addition of a few sidebars, little has changed editorially. The architecture, story positioning, and section names remain the same. Within that framework, the designers have done an outstanding job freshening and updating the magazine. This is a textbook example of the power of graphic design and the skills of the redesigners. It looks and feels like a whole new (and much more interesting) magazine, yet it retains its entire pre-redesign editorial DNA. Who knows what could have happened had the editors reimagined the content as much as they did the design.