The "Bible of Design" Gets a Fitting Update

Folio: The Magazine for Magazine Management, April 1, 2004 by David O'Conner

Byline: David O'Conner, partner, FaheyOConner

MAG STATS

I.D.'s sweeping redesign, its first since Bruce Mau's makeover in the early 1990s, lives up to the magazine's status as the bible of the design world. Editor Julie Lasky has brought a fresh, authoritative new voice to the magazine, and her team, creative director Nico Schweizer and art director Kobi Benezri, have matched it with a wonderful, fresh new look.

Typography & Graphics

The signature font used is Coranto. I think this is the first time it has been used in an American magazine, and it lends a strong, almost intellectual personality to I.D. The cover is a poppy marriage of roman, italic and bold faces. The italic is so different that it almost operates as a separate font, yet the type remains modern and simple. I love how the cover riffed on the LaZBoy upholstery pattern by covering the image with giant, transparent yellow dots. I also love the transparent logo.

This redesign is exactly the right personality. It's vaguely Euro in tone, but it's warm, too, thanks to the Coranto. The pacing makes it easy to navigate throughout and offers many entry points. The art is great. The designers use their creativity to solve problems, and it looks like they're having a great time doing it.

Front/Back of Book

The Front of Book is still called "Expo." It was often sloppy in the old version, in part because much of the art was pickup and varied in quality. In the new rendition, the designers have created a simple, elegant three-column grid to ground the section. The type is pure, mixing roman and italic faces for heads and decks. The section is now strong, compelling and well organized. The "On Exhibit" boxes provide a nice pop of bright color that really draws the reader in.

Davis Starr is shooting many products for the "New and Notable" section, and it is now stimulating, newsy and sexy. I read every caption.

The Feature Well

Each piece in the feature well is simply designed, but special. Take "Splashing in the Gene Pool": Alexis Rockman's paintings are almost baroque. The designers wisely kept the type elegant, but still had the smarts to add a blue rectangle on the opening spread that subtly suggests a pool. The type slightly bleeds off the rectangle, just enough so that everything melds harmoniously. Lovely! Also perfect is the cover story design. Arting the piece almost entirely with information graphics is risky, but it pays off. Page 64 is all stats, but it's clean and crafted typography. "Paths of Least Resistance" is also smart and modern. This feature on labyrinths opens with a Christoph Niemann-esque illo, then moves into a simple grid with white space on the second spread showcasing photos of labyrinths.

Summary

Design mags can look and read as deeply dry. I.D. marries new, very interesting content with a design that will seduce the reader. This is one of the best reinventions I've seen since Art Auction's breathtaking makeover. Kudos to the entire I.D. team for putting this magazine back on the map as a must-read/must-see. Look for this one to win in all the competitions.