The state of the magazine

I was talking about layout in one of my classes this week and someone raised their hand and asked me, are there any magazines that you think has good design? And I really had to think about it because there are so many bad designed magazines out their. I have been thinking about this question for a long time and the answer that I keep coming back to is NO. There is not a magazine that i read that has good design.

the last magazine that i saw with really good design was a magazine called “raygun” that was designed by David Carson, one of my graphic design idols. That magazine was created in the 1990’s, so i have not seen one that has the same emotional design as raygun had. I was thinking why that was and I figured it out while i was driving into school. David Carson was not a formally trained designer, so he took risks that a trained graphic designer back then would not take. He distorted and destroyed copy and challenged the reader.

Today’s magazine there is NO regard for the type. It is all just placed in the page and the headlines are not considered a design element. EVERYTHING is a template of what and where things are placed. I am not saying that all the type needs to be unreadable, but it needs to be considered a part of the design and not an after thought. The cover is important, but does not need to be what they spend all the time one.

COME ON MAGAZINES!

~dzob