Change by design: a look at eight redesigns - why they were done and what they achieved

Folio: The Magazine for Magazine Management, May, 1990 by David Merrill

David Merrill is a magazine design,, and art director in New York and WestPort, Connecticut. He bas been a Senior art director with Ogilty & Mather and the art director of Time.

A look at eight redesigns - why they were done and what they achieved

In my experience-about 60 redesigns in a dozen years - there are four main reasons to redesign a magazine:

1. Trouble: Subscription and/or advertising renewals are down. Or newsstand sales are off. Or there are complaints from readers or, more often, advertisers.

2. Fine tuning: The publication is not necessarily in trouble. But, like automakers, publishers and magazine designers have to keep up with or ahead of the competition. They do this by frequently updating and occasionally coming out with a brand new model.

3. Repositioning: The environment has changed, prompting management to go in a new direction.

4. Change of management: The new owner or manager first redecorates the corner office and then redesigns the magazine to reflect his or her perception of the publication and its audience.

Valid reasons all (although some are perhaps more valid than others). But whatever the reason for a redesign, there is much to be learned from the results. Let's take a look at eight and see what a little analysis produces.

Modern Maturity

Modern maturity's redesign was initiated and done by staff art director james H. Richardson. "I felt the magazine was beginning to look like a suit that was several years old, a bit wide in the lapels and baggy in the seat," he explains. "I wanted to improve its readability and organization, and at the same time make it sparkle visually,"

Richardson adds that he ran into some internal opposition when he first suggested the redesign, since the magazine was so obviously successful: America's largest circulation at over 20 million. However, part of his reasoning was that the magazine had been designed originally to compete with lots of fractional ads-and now there were many more full pages. "Now we could afford a more dignified approach," he says.

"We've always aimed at readability," Richardson explains, "because 70 percent of our readers have some sight impairment." Modern maturity's body copy typeface is Times Roman I 1 on 12. It has been condensed 5 percent, which gives them the same character count as 10-point type.

A side effect of a redesign is that it encourages everybody to consider anew their particular areas of the publication. This often leads to more changes (improvements) than were originally anticipated. At the time of Modern Maturity's redesign, for example, some of the magazine's departments were renamed and a few new ones created.

In the first redesigned issue, there is a letter from managing editor Linda Hubbard explaining what has been changed and why- " . . . to give a more contemporary feel Such a letter puts a positive spin on a redesign, which is always a good idea. I know of one redesign that was slipped quietly to readers and advertisers a few elements at a time over several issues in hopes that they wouldn't be disturbed. Does that make sense? if management wasn't proud of the redesign, they shouldn't have done it.

Modern Maturity's redesign definitely fits into my category 2-"Fine tuning." The logo is modified with a smaller "Modern" and larger "Maturity," but otherwise the typography and cover format remain the same.

This is one of the few major magazines that has page numbers on cover lines as a reader aid. Most publications, like supermarkets, would rather have readers wandering around among the other stories--and ads-looking for the article. And a danger with page numbers on the cover is that the cover usually closes early, thus locking in the articles' positions.

Modern Maturity uses my favorite formula for cover elements: a main cover story with a big headline that goes with the cover art, and then three alternate cover lines. Research I've been involved with supports this formula. A single subject might not interest the potential reader, while more than four becomes clutter so that none of them are eye-catching. However, a glance at any newsstand proves that the formula is debatable.

On the interior of Modern Maturity, an important design element, a red horizontal rule, has been replaced by a short stocky one. And some headings on the table-of-contents page and department heads have been changed from serif to a bold sans serif face, thereby giving up a little design purity.

Feature stories, both before and after, are handsomely laid out and well illustrated and use Modem Maturity's basic Times Roman for headlines as well as body copy.

I think Modern Maturity is very well and appropriately designed for its audience, although I wonder about emphasizing Maturity" more than "Modern."

Nation's Business

Nation's Business employed the design firm of Vignelli Associates for what editor Robert T Gray calls refinements designed to help us remain effective and contemporary." He elaborates in an editor's note to readers: "Four years ago this month, Nation's Business introduced the most extensive redesign in its history, along with major editorial changes. Those steps, we said, make Nation's Business still more contemporary, more relevant, and more useful."