New York Times Magazine Redesign

This past weekend the New York Times Magazine unveiled a new design in order to cut down on space, and trim their paper size. With the internet threatening the newspaper and magazine business the magazine needed to find a way to cut costs. The art director, Arem Duplessis, and his staff gave the magazine, "a cleaner, more modern feel." Along with a brighter color palette the magazine has introduced Lyon Text as its official, exclusive body type. For display type they are employing Knockout and Nyte. I find it interesting that not only is the internet culture changing the content of newspapers/magazines, but also greatly shaping their look and feel. I am a subscriber to WIRED Magazine, and with the unveiling of the new NYT Mag. look I couldn't help but notice the similarities between the two. Both now have the bright color palettes, use modern sans serif typefaces often in capital letters, and use very grid-based designs. Also they are both reporting on infrastructure/systems. You have to wonder if WIRED was used as a source of inspiration, or if it subconsciously was in the minds of the NYT Mag team as they rebranded themselves.


Last Week: The Old Cover (side note: great article on President Clinton and his foundation, where I used to intern)



This Week: The New Cover






Detail of Covers - note the use of bright orange and magazine names in metallic silver




Colorful, playful graphics from a NYT Mag. Headline... feels techish, modern




Graphics of Infrastructures/City Systems:

Shots from D.C.

I'm planning a trip out to D.C. in August to visit my cousin so it got me looking at photos I took last time I was there in spring '08. Here are a few shots from that trip.

Buttons from My Collection

Anyone that knows me would not be surprised to hear that I am a collector of political buttons. I think they are interesting because so much can be represented in such a small circle. Not only are the passions and beliefs of the candidates and their followers reflected, but they symbolize moments in the history of our country. They show both the political and design climates of those times. My Dad started this collection with the earliest button from 1964 (Barry Goldwater), and I have continued it to the present day dating up to Obama in '08. Here are just a few...

The Textures + Type of KC

With a couple of hrs. downtown yesterday I decided to seek out the interesting textures and type that make up KC's urban landscape.

Designing Obama Presentation

I just got done watching the webcast of "Designing Obama," a presentation at the Walker Art Museum in Minnesota. The presentation was made by Sol Sender (pictured above), who spearheaded the development of the Obama '08 logo design, and Scott Thomas, Design Director for the Obama campaign. Sender developed the initial logo as part of his work for Sender, LLC. This included the lowercase Obama. As the campaign evolved Thomas helped with the typography and the uppercase Obama became the new standard.


Gotham was used as a typeface, because it was decidedly American. It was developed for the Port Authority in New York originally. They could have used Helvetica and made Obama look like a generic President, but that obviously would have been Swiss in origin. Plus they knew that a candidate like Obama would only come around once every 100 years or so, and so he needed to stand out. Sender mentioned that they admired the way the Hillary campaign implemented their strategy in terms of getting signs out, but the identity did not take any risks and there was a "don't rock the boat" type of mentality.



When asked about the different grassroots variations of the Obama logo, they mentioned that the "Pirates for Obama" one was their favorite because of the sheer simplicity of flipping the logo and having it work.



Thomas is part of a group of designers called "The Post Family."

Check out their site here