Rob post a jpg or what you got.

Sorry about the quality, only thing i have readily available is the digital camera...

Anyone else think that it looks a bit like ID? Though I think that they are in the same publishing group, so it doesn't surprise me too much.

id? hmmmm, no. depends on which ID you mean? the uk one (lifestyle) or the us one (design)? to me the inside more looks like a book, not like a magazine, which is fine, but doesn't remind me on one of the two ids

Sorry, I meant the US ID, and not the european ID or I-D. And the more I look at it, the more I think the US ID. The cover is using much the same device of the content listing on the right with rules under each item. Same goes for the use of white space and rules in the interior shot. Again, if memory serves, the two magazines have the same publisher, so perhaps we are seeing the beginning of a merging between the two, as ID is about industrial design, though it has often covered graphic design.

here's the cover, closer...



Here's the inside page, closer, but again, terrible scanner...

<em>as ID is about industrial design</em>

ID stands for International Design, hence the wide variety of design topics it covers.

Darrel,

I stand corrected, you are absolutly right. Too many magazine topics and names floating in my head.

And yes, Print and ID are both published by F+W Publications, which also publishes How -- as well as scores of other magazines.

For those who can't read Rob's scan, the new Print uses Lexicon from Enschede for body copy and display, and a specially commissioned, rounded version of HTF Gotham for decks, heads, pullquotes and the like.

I just can't 'get my arms around' Print's new use of the rounded Gotham. Sorry. Maybe it has to do with the abundant use of Gotham in general. I bought it last year out of sheer gotta-have-it-kinda-love, but it seems to be everywhere I look: Home Depot, Banana Republic, Lowes, magazine after magazine, etc. etc. Enough already! I've already abandoned it for Avenir Next, Houschka, and whatever else isn't being beaten to death. (Opens can of worms, sets on table...)

i would lean towards agreeing with dylan...as i havent examined it nearly as much as i should to make wonderfully educated statements, my opinion is mostly on a quick pick up and browsing but it feels or felt somewhat goofy and awkward. again, as it was a while ago i looked at it, it just felt like it was in opposition to some of the layouts i saw (the use of the rounded HTF Gotham). i like the table of contents...clean and easy to figure out. the first page of them at least. i remember some crazy arrows on the second page perhaps? not sure what they were for other than needless distraction maybe....standard gotham is wonderful and used in the right setting can evoke all sorts of moods and conjur up any number of wonderful signage pieces i've seen, but in the wrong places it feels just that. wrong. again, i'd have to give it a harder lookover but i'm leaning towards not being extrememly wowed by the new redesign. it's clean, but clean like nakedly bashful?

anyone seen How's redesign? there's a beast worth talking about...

What, hardly a peep about the use of Lexicon in an American
publication? As a nation we're renowned for gracing our design
magazines with wonky text settings (Metropolis!?) so I'm curious
to see how this one shakes out.

<<>>

Will: the arrows were picked up from the article on Andreas Uebele, who often uses them in wayfinding projects. This sort of subtle visual connection will appear on the TOC for each issue.

The cover subtitle, "Design Culture Type" is also intended to be mutable

ok, well it's clearly obvious i should have held my tongue until further investigation, but thank you, joyce, for the explanation of the arrows as visual relationship and explaining the cover subtitle variations that are to come.

i plan on sitting down with the old design and the redesign and comparing, as i feel a little ashamed about 'jumping the gun' with not much to go on, then i'll share my second impression thoughts.

eric, what does wonky mean? i am curious

Over on Speak Up, we are working on a review of both Print and HOW, since they both are F&W publications, both were redesigned by a Pentagram partner, both were launched in Jan/Feb and both are remarkable improvements of their predecessors. We are trying to include Q&As with both Abbott Miller (Print) and DJ Stout (HOW) to make it a nice comprehensive review.

In the meantime, I can offer a similar sentiment already expressed: at times, this redesign-inaugural issue of Print does resemble ID in subtle ways (the use of cyan and magenta type, being one of them).

Usually a British term, techinally means: shaky, feeble, wrong
and even awry. (as paraprashed from a dictionary).

Though I'm guessing you knew that. By applying it type I'm
referring to not so fantastic text settings.

I haven't seen the new Print yet. Looking forward to it though.

Armin, please do let me/us know when that review goes up!

hhp

i most definitely cannot deny the fact this redesign is very nice. in the few times i've picked up older issues of print (including the one i borrowed from our little library today) it's easy to see this is much more clean and readable. eye-friendly. BUT, putting the fact aside that this is a change and improvement on something that already existed, i'm curious to know why, if this magazine made it's debut today, why we'd like it's design. unfortunately, i'm coming off as dense and uneducated which i regret to do, but i'm more curious as to what designers think about good page layout and design. like what makes those things click in our heads while the pieces fall together. as i work with a magazine currently doing design and layout i feel i can never learn enough, and it was the one subject of design education that always seemed to elude me, sort of like long division in 3rd grade. being able to design in the short term with the long term always in mind, and it always left me feeling like i was missing something.

so if anyone would like to explain in depth the reasons for the enjoyment of this redesign, i, and hopefully others, would find it very informative. comparing the old to the new, or just stating reasons as to why you like or dislike what is happening within those pages.

cheers to always feeling like you know nothing but can learn everything!

I've got to admit the redesigned issue of Print is one of the first I've actually paid attention to in quite some time. When recent past issues arrived, I'd quickly flip through them and immediate make the decision that the text heavy articles made my brain hurt and I'd set the magazine aside for possible read later. The new design caught my attention. I actually sat down and started reading it as soon as I ripped it out of it's plastic mailing bag. It seems that pentagram has put some new life into what was becoming a stale publication for me.

The other F+W design publication, HOW, also got a going over by pentagram and I think the redesign is refreshing and gives the editors/art directors a lot more flexibility in presenting text and images. I suppose, in the interest of "full disclosure" I should acknowledge that I am a member of HOW's Editorial Advisory Board - and it was interesting to be included in sneak peaks of the new design in process.

Did ID get a redesign as well?

- Jeff

:: :: :: :: :: :: ::

Jeff Fisher :: Engineer of Creative Identity
Jeff Fisher LogoMotives
http://www.jfisherlogomotives.com

:: :: :: :: :: :: ::

HOW Magazine Editorial Advisory Board :: 2005 HOW Conference Advisory Board

Speaker: "Tooting Your Own Horn" :: 2005 HOW Design Conference :: Chicago

Author: "The Savvy Designer's Guide to Success" from HOW Design Books.


:: :: :: :: :: :: ::

Anyone else think that it was the STEP redesign that raised the bar?

Perhaps the way the STEP was able to reposition itself may have
inspired some. Purely speculation though.

It surely wasn't the typography of STEP. It's as terrifying as
yesterdays inaugural speech.

Eric, do you have any feelings about the rounded version of Gotham? It seems to want to crash the "rounded workmanlike geo sans" party where your Bryant was holding court.

I wonder why fellow midwesterners (F&W, the publisher of Print, is in Cincinnati) didn't look a couple of states north for their type.

> Did ID get a redesign as well?

Yup, last year in January.

> I'd quickly flip through them and immediate make the decision that the text heavy articles made my brain hurt

Maybe that has something to do with issues other than the layout...

> Anyone else think that it was the STEP redesign that raised the bar?

Probably. But also STEP needed a new editorial direction, whereas ID, HOW and Print mostly needed to get with the program in terms of their look. ID is the one that raised the bar.

> I wonder why fellow midwesterners (F&W, the publisher of Print, is in Cincinnati) didn't look a couple

Well, it was designed by a firm in New York

Interestingly, I don't care too much for the new Print logo redesign. While the typeface warmly reflects handprinting reminiscent of early years in elementary school, it is overall sterile and plain. As some of you have touched on, I think the magazine is becoming uniformly "sexless" and "unappealing" like so many others trying to increase its readership through formal conservatism. Whatever happened to design based on "personality" and "character"? A typeface can convey, conjure, and evoke emotional content as well as communicate at the same time.

I feel the use of H&FJ's Gotham Rounded gets lost in the cover, amist the photography or illustration, thus becoming difficult to read from a browsing distance. Also, the visual weight, both due to spacing and density of the letters "print" are too weak in my opinion. I also find it interesting that the color is yellow since it's commonly known that it's the first color to become indistinguishable for a male color blind person.

I must admit that the new design is an improvement. I just think it could go even further.

Pentagram's J. Abbot Miller and DJ Stout will be doing a presentation about the redesign of HOW and Print at the 2005 HOW Design Conference in Chicago. I hope to attend the session.

http://www.howconference.com/sessions.asp

- Jeff

Interesting. That's almost Bryant.

Closer! Take a macro shot!