Typophile - Is God Dead? Is Type Dead? (top forty magazine covers survey) - Comments

> the more interesting the

hrant — Tue, 1 Nov 2005 19:52:56 -0800

> the more interesting the copy is, the less creative treatment it needs.

True. But a more creative treatment can still only help (although by “creative” I certainly don’t mean obvious or mannered).

> At that time, Bodoni was appreciated as an un-fancy font

Even assuming we can know that, and it’s true, it remains that a font also has an effect on people irrespective of what they think it’s evoking.

> the kink in the y’s tail

That’s actually a text-level effect, [generally] misplaced in the display realm.

hhp

It doesn’t say in the book

rcapeto — Tue, 1 Nov 2005 18:17:31 -0800

It doesn’t say in the book I got this info from why Lois chose Bodoni. I suspect that he wanted something that looked sober and factual, and perhaps a face that looked like what the articles were set in. (They usually used Franklin Gothic on the cover.)

By the way, the three Esquire covers that made the top ten were all designed by George Lois. He practically set the standard of what a good magazine cover is.

FWIW, one of the first jobs the young George Lois had as a CBS staff designer, working under William Golden, was to redesign all the characters of Bodoni – Didot Bodoni as they called it – as the CBS corporate face. And he complained – jokingly – about how demanding Golden was. Bodoni does the job perfectly on the Esquire cover. Lois: big ego, but brilliant indeed.

I’m interested that Cheney

Dan Weaver — Tue, 1 Nov 2005 15:02:24 -0800

I’m interested that Cheney has sacrificed his chief of staff to the leak of the CIA agent. The editorials today point to him leaking the info to discreate anyone against the war on Iraq. Thus the congressional hearing today challenging the reasons for the war.

For the type only cover,

Nick Shinn — Tue, 1 Nov 2005 14:47:06 -0800

For the type only cover, I’m reminded of what Bob Gill (Pentagram founder) had to say in his 1970s How-To book on graphic design (titled “Forget everything you know about graphic design”?), which was that the more interesting the copy is, the less creative treatment it needs. I think he gave the example of “Cure for cancer discovered” needing no creative spin. That philosophy was implemented by George Lois.

The layout style Lois used for “Oh my God..” was an ad headline style of the ’60s, whereby it looked like it was a text setting, blown up big — Upper and lower case, flush left. Very informal and conversational, like the ad copy of the time. (However, they did nuance the setting for scale by tightening it up a lot.)

At that time, Bodoni was appreciated as an un-fancy font (and is to this day by Massimo Vignelli et al), due to its rationalized geometric structure. Used real big in headlines, the serifs are like slab serifs, and the few funky idiosyncracies like the kink in the y’s tail serve to roughen up the geometric logic of its overall construction, accentuating the “this is a scrap, enlarged” idea.

Carl Ally countered Helmut Krone’s “We Try harder” ads for Avis, which had body text set in something like 24 pt Perpetua Bold, with similar “big type’ ads for Hertz, set in Bodoni Bold. Although they were working with typositor types, the idea was that those guys were blowing up fine text types to headline size and using them as massive “text” weapons. This effect of typographic scale can be appreciated more when you hold the magazine, rather than see it in a reproduction.

Lois had done type-only headline ads (eg. “John, is Billy Coughing, Get him some medicine,” again on a black background), and I don’t think he drew a distinction in technique between the ads and editorial. It’s all about the Big Idea. His Esquire covers used the same creative vocabulary as his ads. In “My God..”, you have a headline and body copy, with an asymmetric use of plenty of “white” space. It is the ruthless minimalism, coupled with an exact positioning and balance of elements, which makes this a masterpiece. And the Big Idea. If Andy Warhol put the language of popular, commercial culture in the art gallery, George Lois put conceptual art on the street.

BTW, Lois had served in the Korean War.

Thanks Si. This is an

dezcom — Tue, 1 Nov 2005 13:35:29 -0800

Thanks Si. This is an appropriate theme considering Veteran’s day is coming soon.

ChrisL

Closing the loop on the 2000

sii — Tue, 1 Nov 2005 08:29:03 -0800

Closing the loop on the 2000 milestone tangent - NewsDesigner.com on newspaper coverage...

http://www.newsdesigner.com/archives/002390.php

Round up at “Under

Jem — Thu, 27 Oct 2005 18:33:03 -0700

Round up at “Under Consideration”

http://www.underconsideration.com/speakup/archives/002449.html

That was my thought too,

sii — Sun, 23 Oct 2005 19:07:38 -0700

That was my thought too, alternately as a stock ticker, or in the style of scrolling text you see at the bottom of the screen on Fox News.

The art director in me would

Mark Simonson — Sun, 23 Oct 2005 19:03:58 -0700

The art director in me would do it as an odometer.

“Now we can say that Bush

dezcom — Sun, 23 Oct 2005 17:17:18 -0700

“Now we can say that Bush is the new Red Menace”

Or was it the red ink the U.S. Gov went into since the W administration?

ChrisL

I just love how the networks

speter — Sun, 23 Oct 2005 17:11:00 -0700

I just love how the networks chose red for the Republicans. Now we can say that Bush is the new Red Menace.

Gotta love the Onion, they

dezcom — Sun, 23 Oct 2005 14:52:45 -0700

Gotta love the Onion, they are a barrel of laughs :-)

ChrisL

or is that a Bushal basquet of laughs?

Or have one of those scrolly

hrant — Sun, 23 Oct 2005 13:50:05 -0700

Or have one of those scrolly LED setups showing the barrels-per-deaths quotient.

http://www.theonion.com/content/node/34132

hhp

Hrant, Maybe you mean to use

dezcom — Sun, 23 Oct 2005 13:40:58 -0700

Hrant,
Maybe you mean to use one of those signs like McDonalds uses: Over 1,000,000,000,000,000 Sold”

You might have a better word in mind for “sold” though :-)

ChrisL

Anyway, just so this isn’t

hrant — Sun, 23 Oct 2005 13:33:24 -0700

Anyway, just so this isn’t clogging my desktop:

http://www.themicrofoundry.com/other/2000++.gif

Still missing the ’mire though.

hhp

Is God Dead? Is Type Dead? (top forty magazine covers survey)

sii — Mon, 17 Oct 2005 12:02:46 -0700

This press release just came across the wire...

http://home.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/index.jsp?ndmViewId=news...

Of the top 40 magazine covers two are purely typographic...

8. Esquire - October 1966 - “Oh my God - we hit a little girl.”
12. Time - April 8, 1966 - “Is God Dead?”

...interestingly both date from 1966.

Images here - http://nile.doceus.com/editorial/top40covers.htm (updated link 10/20/05)

Cheers, Si