The Weeklies

Folio: The Magazine for Magazine Management, March 1, 2004

Byline: David Matt

A priest, a rabbi and a monk walk into a bar. What do they have in common? Well, perhaps they could use a drink, but that's probably about it.

This is similar to comparing the state of weekly magazine design - a news, sports and entertainment weekly magazine walk into a bar (for more caffeine I imagine), but other than the need for speed, the weekly categories exist in their own spheres. Intentionally fast and serious Business Week is in a different world than colorful and explosive Us Weekly. The Economist and Time Out New York are both Brits, but the two magazines remain in different hemispheres if you're talking design.

News looks like news, sports looks like sports and The New Yorker is The New Yorker. But as I'm scanning the 60 pounds of weeklies spilled over every surface of my office, there is one common denominator I can find beyond cheap saddle-stitched paper. Each mag - from Time to EW - is jam-packed with stuff.

And therein lies the challenge. You've got a limited number of pages and a mandate to look like you've got the freshest stuff. You simply don't have the real estate to air out the magazine with a 12-page photo essay. And you have to use all the tricks you can muster (especially in choosing dramatic photography and illustrations) to disguise what is, of necessity, a standardized format. Mainly, you have to pack it in. (Oh, did I mention that you have one to five days to design and close - all without killing someone?)

But density aside, there seems to be no other global influence in the weeklies. On the other hand, if you divide them into two groups, you can see some common design themes

The Entertainment Magazines

To look as Us, People, Entertainment Weekly and Star is to be reminded that the world moves so much faster and the media assaults more relentlessly than ever. Only a culture where phone kiosks have full-color video ads on the sides, insidious televisions run in elevators and ads that get louder than the Seinfeld reruns you were watching can produce such fast-moving, eye-grabbing, triple drop-shadow tilt-y box-popping stuff that you have to know what Jen wore to Oprah's 50th bash, or care about the exploits of Britney. They do good work.

I'm keeping my eye on People. While EW, Star and Us continue to raise the volume, People has been slowly releasing a very organized and clean redesign, quietly moving in the opposite direction. Is this brand differentiation or a zeitgeist shift?

The News Weeklies

While the two news giants are noticeably different - Newsweek tends to be edgier; Time has phenomenal graphics - both always look smart, informative and professional. As for U.S.News & World Report, my question is: Does it fail to measure up visually because it is so much smaller (and lacks resources) or is it so small because its design is not up to snuff? For something with a name of such scale and sweep, the whole thing feels sluggish and dated. Not a feeling I want when buying a newsweekly. I'd love to see a smart redesign there.

David Matt is design director of Men's Journal and was previously design director of New York