Like many of you, I was stunned by what happened on November 5th. It’s going to take me some time to reckon with what this all says about the values of a large portion of this country. As part of that reckoning—and for some much-needed relief—I’ve opted to spend less time with media in general for a bit. 

But on the morning after I couldn’t ignore an email I got from today’s guest, New York magazine editor-in-chief David Haskell.

What struck me most about his note—which was sent to the magazine’s million-and-a-half subscribers—was what it didn’t say. There were no recriminations. Nothing about how Kamala Harris had failed to “read the room.”  Not a word about Joe Biden’s unwillingness to step aside when he should have. No calls to “resist.” In fact, the hometown president-elect’s name went unspoken (as it is here).

What Haskell did say that left a mark on me was this:

I consider our jobs as magazine journalists a privilege at times like this. 

I was an editor at Clay Felker’s New York magazine, the editor-in-chief of Boston magazine, and I led the creative team at Inc. magazine. And it was there, at Inc., that I had a similar experience. It was 9/11.

I wrote my monthly column in the haze that immediately followed the attacks, though it wouldn’t appear in print until the December issue. It was titled, “Think Small. No, Smaller.” In it, I urged our community of company builders to focus their attention on the things we can control. This is how it ended:

What we can say for certain is that the arena over which any of us has control has, for now, grown smaller. In these smaller arenas, the challenge is to build, or rebuild, in ourselves and our organizations the quiet confidence that we still have the ability to get the right things done.

For all the attention that gets paid to EICs, most of the work you do is done through the members of your team: writers, and editors, and designers, and so many others.

My friend, Dan Okrent, the former Life magazine editor and Print Is Dead guest, once said, “Magazines bring us together into real communities.”

Moments like this demand something different—something direct and personal from an editor to that community. Something that offers a challenge, but also an opportunity, to answer the question in a clear and credible way: So what do we do now?

Read the full episode transcript here.

Print Is Dead (Long Live Print!) is a podcast about magazines and the people who made (and make) them. Magazines that combined thought-provoking attitudes and values with a distinctive look and feel, and cast a long and powerful shadow on American culture and public discourse. Hear stories and learn lessons from legendary designers, editors, writers, publishers, photographers, illustrators, photo editors, and more—stories and lessons that capture a magical history of innovation and inspiration, and that point the way forward. We’ll go deep into the lives and careers of this astonishingly talented group of creators, and tease out what these giants—past and present—have to teach the next generation of creators.

If you’re in the magazine business—if you’re in any business focused on content creation—this podcast is for you.

This episode is a special collaboration with The Spread and is made possible by PIDLLP sponsors Commercial Type, Mountain Gazette, and Freeport Press.

The team behind Print is Dead (Long Live Print!) also produces The Full Bleed, a podcast about the future of magazines and the magazines of the future.

The post A Pretty Complicated Organism | David Haskell appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

The Northhampton, MA-based artist is set to release their third collection of poems this coming March, provocatively entitled Big Money Porno Mommy. With a title like that, one needs an equally compelling cover, which Weiss was able to not only envision but also bring to life.

“Big Money Porno Mommy is about power and desire. It’s about pornography and my choice to not become a mother. It’s about the male gaze and how it’s wielded. It’s about all of these things in the context of my body, which happens to be a fat body,” Weiss penned in a piece they wrote reflecting on the book and its cover. “The physical forms of those we love and lust after—even the bodies we idealize—they’re all kind of ridiculous when you get close enough.”

The cover of Big Money Porno Mommy encapsulates this playfulness, capturing both the grotesque and the organic beauty inherent to the human body. The ability to harmonize two ideas that might initially seem at odds with one another is central to Weiss’ practice as a poet and something they were keen on evoking in their book’s cover.

“I needed the flesh to be forefront. I wanted to evoke fatness and nudeness but without a silhouette—fatness as the text itself. Many people have instinctive reactions to the form of a fat body. I wanted this cover to elicit a reaction, but rather than othering the form, and projecting whatever preconceived notions about fatness they may have onto my book, I wanted to bring the audience in.”

After seeing the cover of Big Money Porno Mommy and reading Weiss’s initial thoughts on their process, I was eager to talk to the artist. My Q&A with Weiss, in which I dig even deeper into their process and their reconciliation of clashing concepts, is transcribed below.

(Edited lightly for clarity and length.)

The physical forms of those we love and lust after—even the bodies we idealize—they’re all kind of ridiculous when you get close enough.

Catherine Weiss

What’s your process typically like for writing your poems?

When I think about writing poems, I try to see if a poem can do more than one thing at a time. It’s hard to write a poem that’s just about one thing, I have found. When I sit down to write a poem, I have two ideas, and then maybe the third thing that comes out of it is the poem. So when I was thinking about designing this cover, I was similarly interested in having more than one idea. 

The cover is so striking. What was your thought process behind that design?

I was also interested in having the typography contain this fleshiness, so you get the information from what the words literally say, but I also wanted the typography to give information as well. Having the title literally embodied in flesh was one way to do that. Then layering the little details of specificity onto the letters, like, Is there a belly button? Is that a tuft of hair? Things that would both hopefully draw someone in to look, and also be a little bit like, Ooh, do I want to look at this? To have that push and pull. 

The typography definitely captures that two-things-at-once idea you’re going for. It’s pretty grotesque, but simultaneously warm and pillowy and even comforting which complicates that initial disgust. At what point in the writing process did you design the cover? 

Once I had about half of the poems, I said, Okay, well, this is a collection. This is going to be something. And I had the title, and I kept writing poems to keep adding, so that’s when I started brainstorming what the cover would possibly look like. I kept coming back to this idea of flesh letters and fat rolls. An early iteration looked more like Sharpie on my stomach, and I thought about having a photograph instead of doing it digitally. But at a certain point I realized I needed to learn the software to make my vision happen. 

One of the things about writing the poems and designing the cover is that I got to spend a lot of time with both of them. I got to spend a ton of time with this cover. I kept iterating and putting it in a drawer and then coming back to it as more poems got written.  

Can you speak about that technical side of things in terms of the cover? What software did you use? What was your design process like? 

This is created in Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop. Illustrator has a very simple tool that allows you to blow up text or other shapes to inflate them in this faux 3D space. Once I realized that tool was pretty simple and I could play with it by adding skin texture, I spent a lot of time finding the right skin texture to make it look as gross as possible. 

I also spent a lot of time trying to figure out what the shape of the letters was going to be, because I wanted it to be legible. The first iteration was much more blocky and the letters were separated from each other, so it looked a little bit more like someone had been chopped up. That wasn’t quite right and that was also much harder to read. 

I didn’t really spend much time sketching but iterating in the software. How far can I distort this letter pattern to make it legible and also to get the effect that I’m looking for? 

What was your thought process behind the colors of the cover, particularly the magenta-to-orange gradient background behind the flesh-toned lettering? 

Until quite late in the process, I had a different background entirely. For a long time, it was a comforter, pillowcase sort of texture. Ultimately I didn’t stick with that because it was just a stock photo that didn’t really interact with the weight of the letters, and it was taking attention away from the letters themselves. 

I wanted the cover as a whole to pop, so I knew I wanted something bright and cheerful, and I just love pink and orange. It’s been a color combination that I’ve been drawn to. Also, this is my third full-length collection, so I kept in mind my previous collection which was sort of a green. So, I thought, What do I want these books lined up on a shelf to look like? 

Now that the poems and cover are all done and dusted, what would you say you’re proudest of with what you’ve created? 

I think letting myself sit with the uncomfortable. Even with the cover, being able to forefront the discomfort while not giving up the joy that is found in this collection. 

This collection has a series of poems called “The Phone Sex Poem,” and they tell a story about a bad relationship and a boyfriend who was addicted to phone sex. They’re about the ramifications that it had on my life, and the reverberations going forward in terms of my relationship to sex and desire. 

On the face of it, that was a really hard thing to write about. I’d been aware that I’d been choosing not to write about it for several books, and I think it was really important for me to find an entry point that was playful in order to talk about a difficult subject. I think I found a balance that not only isn’t a bummer to read, but I also feel comfortable putting out into the world and telling my story in a way that feels holistic and worthwhile.

Look for Big Money Porno Mommy by Catherine Weiss on shelves in March 2025.

The post Catherine Weiss Embraces Discomfort in their Book of Poems, ‘Big Money Porno Mommy’ appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

The 2025 PRINT Awards jury is like a masterfully curated bouquet. Each juror a unique bloom, contributing to a vibrant tapestry of creativity and expertise. Presenting your work before this panel is like planting it in a fertile field, where ideas are nurtured and celebrated for their ingenuity and potential to flourish.

This year, we welcome jury members from across the creative spectrum in traditional PRINT Awards categories, such as handlettering and type design, to new categories, including social media content design, title sequence design, and graphic novels.

At the heart of these new categories is the power of storytelling. And, like you, our jurors are masters of that craft.

One of these storytellers is Mike Nicholls, who will be looking at work in the Advertising and Editorial categories. An award-winning creative director, brand strategist, editorial designer, and visual artist out of Oakland, Mike wields design for discovery, inspiration, and community building. Mike also founded Umber, a media and editorial platform featuring creative perspectives that matter, having been recognized by AfroTech (Blavity), San Francisco Chronicle, KQED, and Communication Arts.

What gets me most excited is storytelling through design. Design to me is not just conveying an idea, it is creating an experience to spark a conversation.

Mike Nicholls

We’re also excited to welcome Dora Drimalas, who, along with her fellow jurors Pablo Delcan and Alex Lin, will review Annual Reports, Books-Covers, Jackets, Books-Entire Package, and Brochures & Catalogs.

Drimalas is the co-founder and executive creative director of Hybrid Design and also the co-founder of Super7. Her extensive background in brand strategy and graphic design has allowed her to work intimately on projects with some of the largest brands in the world, such as Nike, Sonos, The North Face, Google, Apple, Samsung, Mohawk Fine Paper, TED Conferences, Lego, Verizon, and Starwood Hotels, to name a few. Drimalas’ creativity innovates at the intersections of design, content, and culture within multiple mediums, always looking for new answers.

I am the most excited about the evolution of design and experiences. Design solves business problems in a visual and functional way. When it’s done well, it looks like magic and creates an experience that stands out. Embracing change can be scary, but it’s also where innovation lives.

Dora Drimalas

In addition to Mike Nicholls and Dora Drimalas, we’re thrilled to welcome the leading voices in their fields. While we are still adding to our stellar list of jury members for 2025, you can see who will be considering your work here.

Great design communicates ideas, evokes emotions, and connects with audiences on a deeper level, whether through illustration, packaging design, data visualization, or social media, going beyond function to tell a story that sticks. If your work tells a story that sparks ideas and fuels innovation, the PRINT Awards jury awaits!

The post The 2025 PRINT Awards Jurors Have Stories to Tell appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

We’re at this great nexus of being able to return focus to the book as an object, as a form of expression, and figuring out ways to do that so that it’s relevant to a contemporary audience.

Arion Press has been manually printing books on centuries-old equipment in San Francisco for 50 years, yet they are currently embarking upon a new beginning. The last vertically integrated bookmaker in the country, Arion Press was established in 1974 and has most recently been housed in San Francisco’s Presidio neighborhood. They officially opened their new doors in the Fort Mason Center for Arts & Culture in October—after moving over 49 tons of antique equipment—and will soon be releasing their second title of the year, Fables of Aesop.

Arion Press is composed of a production team of six people, split between three departments: the foundry, the press room, and the book bindery. They also work with local bookbinder John Demerritt, and have an additional seven employees on the administrative side of things who spearhead development and programming. Arion Press’s lead printer and creative director, Blake Riley, was hired back in 2001 originally as one of the imprint’s first apprentices. I recently spoke with Riley on the occasion of all of this excitement, to learn more about the history of Arion Press, Fables of Aesop, and keeping the art of bookmaking alive.

(Lightly edited for clarity and length.)

Take me back to the origin of Arion Press. How did it all begin? 

We trace our lineage back in San Francisco to the late teens when Edwin and Robert Grabhorn came out from Indiana. Curiously, Edwin had been primarily a printer of music scores, which is a very niche, phenomenal process that has fallen entirely by the wayside at this point. They set up shop in San Francisco in the late teens and established the Grabhorn Press, which became one of the premier American fine press operations for decades, through the 60s. After Edwin passed away, the younger brother, Robert, ultimately went into partnership with Andrew Hoyem. When Robert died, Andrew founded Arion as an imprint in 1974, which is why we’re claiming this year as our 50th anniversary celebration. 

I know you started out at Arion Press as an apprentice. Can you tell me a bit more about the apprenticeship program? 

With maybe only one exception, everyone who works in production here has come up through this apprenticeship program. It’s ongoing and is considered a fundamental part of the activity that happens here. 

This is one of those professions or trades that is especially unique because it relies very heavily on this oral transmission of skills. There is a certain amount of book learning you can do around this; you can learn technique by reading repair manuals and that kind of thing. But to really have a sense for the sounds of the presses and to be able to see how hands work in relation to bring it all together, there’s no way to simulate that experience. So the apprenticeships became really instrumental in that.

By now, we’ve easily had over three dozen apprentices. Obviously, not all of them have stayed, some of them have gone on to work in other areas of the book arts or for other book arts organizations, or to teach, some of them have moved on altogether, but it actually has proven to be a very successful, robust lifeline for the press and for letterpress printing as a whole. 

I think a lot of other old trades and handcrafts are similar. I’m a sign painter, and I took a two-year sign painting course at LA Trade Tech College that’s not an apprenticeship per se, but it does replicate certain aspects of what an apprenticeship would offer. I learned from two sign painters who’ve been doing it for decades and who took the course themselves. The knowledge that they have is invaluable, and so much of it is just in their heads, so you really have to be in the room with them for two years in order to even scrape the surface of understanding sign painting.

A lot of it, too, is that the people who have that knowledge aren’t natural-born teachers, so there’s a lot that they don’t have words for. Or until a certain problem arises, it wouldn’t occur to them to explain the fix, or how you go about creating a fix for a problem that’s never arisen, that kind of thing. There’s a lot of that kind of knowledge that gets transferred by osmosis. 

What’s your favorite aspect of what you and your team do at Arion Press? 

Writ large, what’s most exciting about the work is that it’s such a dynamic moment to be involved with the book because it’s going through these radical changes. There’s this interesting division that’s occurred between knowledge and information. When people say, the web is going to be the death knell of the book! it’s really the opposite. What the web has done quite brilliantly is wrangle information and remove all of that encyclopedic burden from the book, which frees it up to do all of these other things. Meanwhile, the technologies for construction and manufacturing are changing so quickly that they are offering these wild new opportunities for ways in which books can actually physically be constructed. So we’re at this great nexus of being able to return focus to the book as an object, as a form of expression, and figuring out ways to do that so that it’s relevant to a contemporary audience.

What the web has done, quite brilliantly, is wrangle information and remove all of that encyclopedic burden from the book, which frees it up to do all of these other things.

Part of that is incorporating new technologies, and figuring out how the book can embrace those. That’s the most exciting thing for us: this project of invention and discovery. What that means in the day-to-day that is especially motivating is that it requires this incredible collaboration between all of the creative people who are involved in a project. That’s the artists within the publishing program, then working with the book binders and the guys in the foundry, and being able to coordinate everyone’s expertise to bring them into alignment with the concept for the project, and hopefully ending up with something that surprises everybody. It’s almost always the case that we never know where we’re going to end up, because the process is so organic.

I’m mesmerized by the ancient printing equipment and techniques you all have preserved and use to create your books. What’s it like working with such special and historic machinery day in and day out? 

A significant portion of the type collection here, which is the largest standing collection of metal type outside of the Smithsonian Institution, goes back to San Francisco printers at the end of the 19th century. Plus, ours is still employed; it’s still making books and printing words; it’s not just a research collection. The collection began to be compiled by the Grabhorns, who were great collectors. All of that adds up to what has been described as this irreplaceable cultural treasure designation that we were bestowed.

When working with the historic type collection, we may have a certain design in mind or a certain look for the typography, but when we go to the case it may turn out that we only have a partial alphabet of that particular typeface. So there are instances like that that arise daily where we have to pivot and devise a new solution based on all of the physical realities and constraints of working with 100-year-old equipment. That really leads to this ongoing, continuous conversation and evolution of every project where one thing leads to the next so that by the time we end up with the book finished and bound, it’s something that no one really could have anticipated. There’s a real excitement, joy, and delight associated with that. 

What’s it like keeping an old press and these antique technologies thriving within the context of San Francisco, a place dominated by big tech and digital innovation? 

The most facile metaphor for it is the interplay and relationship between radio and television, and the ways in which television actually ended up leading to the renaissance of radio that we’ve seen in the last couple of decades. We are by no means tech-averse. The monotype casters, for example, which were invented at the tail end of the Industrial Revolution in the 1890s, were the first word processors; they were cutting-edge technology for their day. So when the foundry was set up here in the Bay Area in 1915, it was cutting-edge technology. 

We are by no means tech-averse.

Originally, the monotypes were a two-part system where there was a paper tape that was punched on a hydraulic keyboard, and then that tape was fed onto the typecaster. But then the paper tape became complicated for various reasons, and about 15 years ago this beautiful digital interface was engineered that replaced that whole process. So now what we have is this 21st-century digital interface connected to the 19th-century caster that allows us to download a text from anything that’s in the public domain, format it, and convert it to be cast. It was this beautiful way, much like television and radio, that the new technology has moved in and helped buoy the old one. 

Another example that came up recently was when we worked on the Edgar Allen Poe collection. In the process of building that project, we stumbled upon this pile of bricks that had been rescued when NYU demolished Poe’s house in lower Manhattan. Unbeknownst to anyone, they moved in and raised the house, but it seems as if perhaps a mea culpa, they preserved the bricks. So all of a sudden we had these bricks, and there was this question of how we could incorporate them somehow into the book and enliven the experience that much more. What we ended up doing with them was working with a colleague of ours here in the Bay, John Sullivan, who had gotten into paper making and 3D printing. He created 3D molds into which we could grind the bricks down like a mortar and pestle and use the brick dust as a pigmentation in the pulp paper, and then we packed the molds. We ended up creating these three-dimensional cameos of Poe’s visage, and those were then embedded in the covers of the books. The paper-making is relatively ancient, but being able to create these cameos was made possible by technology only available within the last ten years. 

We’re really invested in that exploring, in breaking down the barrier between those two things and helping ensure that it’s a two-way communication from the digital to the analog, and from the analog back to the digital. They all happily coexist. 

Can you tell me more about Arion Press’s 50th anniversary celebration this year, and the Fables of Aesop collection you’re releasing as part of the milestone? 

We wanted to create something that would appropriately commemorate the press at this inflection point, while also accommodating the move. A year and a half ago, we didn’t exactly know what the move would entail other than it would happen within a six-month period and be completely disruptive and unpredictable. So we had to design a project that could somehow be modular and flexible enough to absorb this unexpected future. 

Those two things came together in Aesop. It seemed appropriate not only for its longstanding role in the history of printing— I came across one comment that said, second to the Bible, Aesop’s fables is the most printed work in the Western world. This makes a lot of sense because, for various historical and technical reasons, the fables lent themselves to the capacities and technologies of the day once moveable type was created. This is in part because of their brevity, but especially because of how visual they’ve always been. That allowed for this incredibly rich body of work to be created around them, and constantly reinvented. 

As I began to dive into the history of Aesop’s fables primarily at the Huntington Library, one thing that rose to the surface was how these morals that we’ve all grown up with and maybe have even been used to affect our behavior one way or another, have evolved over time. Once we got a bead on that, the project became very interesting because there was an opportunity to approach this in a way that’s relevant to the 21st century; what do these morals look like now? 

Also, because the morals are each self-contained in their way structurally, that allowed us the freedom that we needed to treat them individually. We could be printing each individual folio, which is how we will be presenting them, so that if production was interrupted, we could finish that one folio, pack it aside, move the operation, and pick up with the next folio. It also separated the binding from the printing. Typically when we finish the printing of a book, we have another three months of hand book-binding before the book can be released. But issuing it in a box as a collection of individual folios gave us the elbow room we needed. 

So we had this splashy box and these morals, and both of those things were the anchors for the project. That’s what led us to invite Kiki Smith as the primary visual artist to create a sculptural multiple to define the experience of the box, and to invite Daniel Handler (whom you might know as Lemony Snicket) to reinterpret the morals. We then began to invite other artists that we had worked with in the past to each choose one fable to interpret and create one print that we would print here in the shop by traditional letterpress relief printing techniques. We ended up with 15 artists with Kiki being the 16th, and 41 fables. 

The project allowed us to celebrate our community, it gave us a way to make a statement relevant to a contemporary audience, it gave us the flexibility to dance around the move, and it promised to be a lot of fun in the process.

Featured image above: Nick Bruno/Courtesy of Arion Press

The post Arion Press Keeps the Art of Bookmaking Alive While Looking to the Future appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

Are you a book lover short on shelf space? isolarii makes tiny books with big words—and they’re perfect for a holiday stocking.

isolarii take its name from the extinct genre of Venetian Renaissance “island books.” Month to month, they map the extremes of human knowledge and creative endeavor, assembling perennial legends and emerging icons—scientists and novelists, philosophers and activists, architects and technologists, from the counterculture to the avant-garde—pioneering new ways of understanding ourselves and the Earth.

isolarii is a subscription service, and subscribers receive their first book immediately after joining.

The most recent is a Philip K. Dick story that can be read in one sitting. Who needs ebooks when you have one as small and collectable as this?

The post The Daily Heller: A Handbook for People With Tiny Hands appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

“Many of us didn’t fully know what that impact and influence looked like back then, and how it still carries forward,” Sykes told me. “But as we turned more pages and did more research and had more pre-interviews with experts, with curators, with museum owners, with founders of different types of companies, and with artists themselves, we learned more and more and more.” 

It’s through this extensive research process that Sykes and her team honed in on the creation of a two-part zine series entitled, “Legacy: A Modern Renaissance,” designed to shed light on diverse communities through the lens of Black excellence and achievement. These stories highlight the ways that passing wealth to the next generation is fueling community while celebrating the innovative period of Black art, music, poetry, and literature that launched in Harlem, New York, in the 1920s and ’30s. In partnership with U.S. Bank, the campaign is the first of its kind for The New York Times, paying homage to the lasting impact of the Harlem Renaissance and its 100th anniversary through the power of print.

T Brand Studio has commissioned work from Black writers, storytellers, artists, and designers for the two 12-page zines, highlighting the immense contributions of Black creatives to the arts and wider society. The zines feature work from typographer Tré Seals, poet Mahogany L. Browne, cultural critic and writer Michaela Angela Davis, collage artist Magdaline Davis, and photographer Ivan McClellan. The first zine, “Legacy: The Wealth Issue,” was released as a printed insert in The New York Times Sunday issue on August 18, with the second zine, “Legacy: The Culture Issue” set to be distributed with the December 29 print issue. Both zines are now available to view digitally through an innovative online hub unveiled by T Brand Studio last week. The online hub continues the theme and tradition of accessibility that the zine form is already emblematic of. 

To highlight this thoughtful and poignant campaign and continue to honor the lasting legacy of the Harlem Renaissance, I spoke in-depth with Sykes about the Legacy project, from development to distribution. Our conversation is below, lightly edited for clarity and length.  

Let’s rewind to the genesis of “Legacy: A Modern Renaissance” zine series. How did the idea first develop?

This time a year ago, U.S. Bank, who’s our partner for this program, came to us and said, “Hey, can you create a coffee table book?” They understood that The New York Times would be doing an editorial alignment with the 100th anniversary of the Harlem Renaissance. We said, “We could, but as a custom content studio, our lane really evolves around creating storytelling opportunities.” That’s when we started talking about maybe not a coffee table book, but what could be more realistic is a series of zines.

We wanted to bring the story forward. What does this idea of a Modern Renaissance look like? That’s when we came up with a “Legacy Fulfilled.” We wanted to spark this idea of a national dialog to really show and demonstrate that the Harlem Renaissance was this cultural phenomenon that continues today.

This is a first-of-its-kind program for T Brand Studio and U.S. Bank, where every single contributor on our platform and on this content is Black.

What was your T Brand Studio team hoping to accomplish with this project? 

This is a first-of-its-kind program for T Brand Studio and U.S. Bank, where every single contributor on our platform and on this content is Black. We wanted to remove barriers for Black creatives by not only giving them a platform to share new and untold stories but also to say to us, “These are the stories that I want to tell.” It’s a really huge deal.

The series leverages the talents of Black award-winning writers, poets, journalists, photographers, illustrators, and even a typographer, to specifically do a few things: We wanted to build awareness around the impact and influence of the Harlem Renaissance and grant access and opportunity to a new generation of Black cultural thinkers, which we’re really doing in our culture zine. We also wanted to shine a light on Black affluence because that was a specific, targeted area that U.S. Bank wanted us to speak to, and show people that wealth shows up in a myriad of ways. People are building wealth differently today. It’s not just the financial wealth, but it’s also the intellectual capital, and the historical value that brings to bear when we’re talking about inheritance.

We wanted to ask, across poetry and music and art and fashion and culture, What does the Black diaspora look like today, and how is the impact continuing globally? That’s where the zines come into play. 

People are building wealth differently today. It’s not just the financial wealth, but it’s also the intellectual capital, and the historical value that brings to bear when we’re talking about inheritance. 

Why did you decide on the zine form for this project?

The reason we chose zines is that during the Harlem Renaissance, zines were really designed (around 1918 through the 30s) to allow people without a voice to express themselves, to really communicate with others in the community, and lean into their artistry at the same time in a way that they hadn’t been allowed to do. So we said let’s use this idea of the zines as information for what we do today. 

The zines pay homage to the powerful underground press that existed during the Renaissance that became known for delivering prolific poetry and prose, delivering local news, and giving people cultural information. We wanted to create today’s zines to run as an insert inside The New York Times. It runs in a Sunday newspaper for all of our 600,000 home delivery subscribers. Each zine specifically amplifies how the Harlem Renaissance continues to inspire some of our most powerful cultural moments in America. 

Also with these zines, so much of it has been about giving access to people, but it’s also giving space and making space for new voices, for poetry, for prose, for local news, for cultural information. They’re inspired by that tradition that gave birth to this idea of old voices and new voices. So that’s what these zines do; they not only give access and opportunity, but they give space to people whose voices hadn’t been heard and were traditionally not heard in a mainstream environment.

What are some of the stories told within the pages of these zines? 

One is about a Black family of ranchers, The Bradfords— a fourth-generation family of Black ranchers in Oklahoma. I got to go out there and see them, and talk about what it means to really grow the foundation from the roots. What does that mean for family? What does it mean for legacy? What does it mean for the future? In my mind, that was a really important story to tell, and I knew we could do it through Black farmers, who represent less than 1% of all farmers in America today. 

We also spoke with Julian James, who shared a story about inheritance and the idea that money can mean a myriad of things. He had a Movado watch that was passed down to him by his stepfather. He was a man who thought about not the clothes making the man, but the man making the clothes, and how important it was for you to carry yourself as you went out the door. So that was something that Julian took from him, and now he says that every time he wears this watch, he thinks of his stepfather and his legacy. 

We had Mahogany L. Brown, the current poet-in-residence for the Lincoln Center, write a custom poem for the wealth zine, and she said that everything about this project just felt like home to her. Her marching orders were simple: I said, “If Langston Hughes talked about this idea of a “dream deferred,” how do we bring it forward and speak to what a dream fulfilled looks like?” So she took us to Harlem. She took us to education. She took us to inheritance. She took us to all of the places and spaces that Black folks lived in during the Harlem Renaissance and said this is where and how we’re succeeding today. I thought it was a beautiful nod to the Harlem Renaissance, and it really hit on all of the cylinders as it related to this storytelling.

Can you walk me through some of the editorial design decisions that were made when bringing these zines to life? I know you worked with typographer Tré Seals, for example, to create a custom typeface for the project.  

This is a project that is rooted in the research of the Harlem Renaissance. Many of us didn’t fully know what that impact and influence looked like back then, and how it still carries forward, but as we turned more pages and did more research and had more pre-interviews with experts, curators, museum owners, with founders of different types of companies, and artists themselves, we learned more and more and more. 

In that research process we learned that the original zines during the Harlem Renaissance were designed to allow people without a voice to express themselves, to communicate with others in the community, and lean into artistry. We did a handmade approach to texture and color, and used layered compositions as an intentional nod to those artists who had bootstrapped. 

We used custom typography called VTC Sarah, created by Tré Seals, the founder, designer, and typographer at Vocal Type. VTC Sarah was inspired by his great-grandparents. They were entrepreneurs and business owners, and their names were Sarah and Henry Johnson, and they were pillars of their community. They had provided financing and resources to their neighbors when banks wouldn’t, and that really helped facilitate hundreds of purchases and land sales to the Black community. Our art director, Bri Moran, literally held up Tré’s great grandparents’ marriage certificate at one point and said, “This is what is inspiring, the typeface throughout our zines.” So in working with Tré at every iteration, he made sure that the typeface spoke to those words and the stories that we were telling. 

With the zine’s digital hub launching last week and the physical culture zine mailing out in December, can you shed a bit more light on what’s depicted in that issue in particular? 

We’re celebrating what culture looks like through a lot of different Black creatives. It’s an homage to the arts, literature, dance, and music industries created by Black artisans during the Harlem Renaissance. 

Who are some of the creatives featured in the culture zine? 

We asked Emil Wilbekin, the former editor-in-chief of Vibe Magazine who now runs the platform Native Son, to take us back to having a parlor conversation. These were conversations that were happening in speakeasies and basements during the Harlem Renaissance, where people could really talk about the issues of the day. So we said, “What does that look like if we bring that 100 years forward?” Emil helped to not only moderate the conversation with other Black creatives from different fields, but he also was able to facilitate a Q&A at the Freehand Hotel in Manhattan. I loved this conversation. They talked about what the Harlem Renaissance means today, and the impact that the Harlem Renaissance is having on these particular creatives. 

We also talked to Naima J. Keith, an art curator and an educator at LACMA. She talked about paying tribute to the artisans that came before us, and this idea that because of those artisans in particular, now we can talk about skin tones. Now we can talk about Blackness and all of its authenticity, and how that comes to the table today in ways that it wasn’t before. 

Then there’s Shanari Freeman, who’s the executive chef of Cadence in Manhattan, and she talked about the idea of paying homage to the Harlem Renaissance through collaboration. She said that oftentimes we know what to do, but sometimes we don’t necessarily know how to do it, so let’s teach each other this idea of “each one, teach one.” 

Then we have Fredara M. Hadley, who’s an ethnomusicologist over at the Juilliard School. She talked about the idea of how dances from the Harlem Renaissance are being brought back today through troupes like THECouncil, a collective of five black women who are choreographers, producers, and directors who work with global brands and celebrities. 

What was the process like for developing the digital adaptation of the zine? What considerations went into that?

In addition to the print version of the culture issue, people across the globe will have access to a digital, flippable booklet of both zines, and those are going to be housed online, within a New York Times URL that encourages people to learn more about the resources and opportunities offered by U.S. Bank.

We had a long conversation early on about this idea of a digital hub, and I would always say, “Well, what would be the point of us creating something else if we already have our print zines?” And my team explained to me that it’s because not everybody has the same level of access, which is very important here. The one thing that we wanted to do with both of these zines is to give people opportunity and access, not only to the information but to the history. So that’s exactly what the hub is set out to do; now everyone—subscribers and non-subscribers of the New York Times—will be able to have access to it. 

It’s a great opportunity for us as a custom content studio to be able to take these zines and this content in its physical form and then allow it to live on digitally while also giving people this access. That was the lesson learned for us in our wealth zine— people were like, “This is amazing. How do we get it? How do I share it? How do I link to it?” But as opposed to thinking of it as a problem, we saw it as an opportunity in order for the zines to continue to live and give access to everyone.

The post T Brand Studio Celebrates the Centennial of the Harlem Renaissance with Zine Series & Digital Hub appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

The word “generous” should be highlighted. When often he was asked byfriends to help fund a publication venture, he would gladly do it, and usually throw in my services as part of the investment. This, indeed, is how I came to become the art director and designer of the feminist periodical Broadside. It was edited by his ex, Mary Phillips, a former flight attendant who was a writer, photographer and editor with experience in sexist inequity.

The paper avidly supported the Equal Rights Amendment and advocated for women’s rights—across the board. It was a important short-live attempt at serious feminist reportage. It was also a chance to refocus my graphic design education, such as it was, to do something less salacious than Goldstein’s Screw, and practice my recently found love of Herb Lubalin’s type stylings.

Goldstein did not meddle with any of the editorial content. He barely looked at my layouts until after they were published, so I had relatively free reign. What he did do was set a limit to how many issues he could finance without making back his expenses—after three issues it folded.

It may seem odd for a pornographer to publish a serious feminist pub but Goldstein was complicated in his politics and beliefs.

I just found these in my storage bins (being donated to the SVA Archive) and am compelled to share them here, awkwardly designed logo and all.

The post The Daily Heller: Art Directing ‘Broadside’ appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

When your boss tells you to track down an amusing Steve Brodner factoid to open the podcast with, and one of the first things you find is a, uh, a “dick army,” welp, that’s what you’re going to go with.

Lest you judge me, I can explain. Brodner’s drawing of this army was inspired by a guy who was actually named Dick Armey (A-R-M-E-Y)! He was Newt Gingrich’s wingman back in the nineties. I thought to myself, The people need to know this.

However, with the election now a few days behind us, maybe the time for talking about men and their junk is over?

What you really want to learn about is this Society of Illustrators Hall of Famer’s career. Brodner’s work, which has been called “unflinching, driven by a strong moral compass, and imbued with a powerful sense of compassion,” has been featured in Rolling Stone, The Washington Post Magazine, Esquire, The New Yorker, and many others.

In this episode, Brodner talks about how the death of print has led to the current misinformation crisis. As it gets harder and harder to tell what’s true, the future becomes increasingly uncertain. Even his most biting drawings are rooted in truth.

Satire doesn’t work if you are irresponsibly unreasonably inventive. If satire doesn’t have truth in it, it’s not funny.

A production note: This episode was recorded exactly one week before the election. As our conversation began, we took turns telling stories about memorable election night parties, and our plans for November 5th. Here’s Steve, talking about his plans…

Check out the episode page for the full transcript and illustrations by Brodner.

Print Is Dead (Long Live Print!) is a podcast about magazines and the people who made (and make) them. Magazines that combined thought-provoking attitudes and values with a distinctive look and feel, and cast a long and powerful shadow on American culture and public discourse. Hear stories and learn lessons from legendary designers, editors, writers, publishers, photographers, illustrators, photo editors, and more—stories and lessons that capture a magical history of innovation and inspiration, and that point the way forward. We’ll go deep into the lives and careers of this astonishingly talented group of creators, and tease out what these giants—past and present—have to teach the next generation of creators.

If you’re in the magazine business—if you’re in any business focused on content creation—this podcast is for you.

This episode is made possible by PIDLLP sponsors Commercial Type, Mountain Gazette, and Freeport Press.

The team behind Print is Dead (Long Live Print!) also produces The Full Bleed, a podcast about the future of magazines and the magazines of the future.

The post What Makes Steve Brodner Happy appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

Design creativity blooms in spaces where curiosity meets intention, where ideas are nurtured into forms that resonate and inspire. It’s a process marked by exploration, experimentation, and the willingness to challenge conventions to uncover new perspectives. In this fertile ground, creativity is more than a spark—it’s a cultivated journey, drawing from diverse influences and blending intuition with technique.

Celebrating our 45th year, the 2025 PRINT Awards honors design in every shape and form. And, as our industry continues to evolve and our practitioners continue to explore new mediums and methods to advance their creativity, the PRINT Awards have found new ways to recognize outstanding work.

2024 PRINT Awards First Place Winner in Self-Promotions. The Office of Ordinary Things and D&K Printing. D&K Printing also printed the beautiful 2024 PRINT Awards certificates.

Categories for 2025

The 2025 PRINT Awards offer 28 categories for entries, ranging from Illustration to Motion Design & Video. In recent years, we added In-House, Design for Social Impact, and Packaging and expanded our branding categories. We also expanded the awards to offer students a chance to enter work in each category instead of only one student category. And, this year, our jury will also consider entries in Social Media + Content Design, Title Sequence Design, and Graphic Novels.

Learn more about the 2025 PRINT Awards categories.

2024 PRINT Awards Third Place Winner in Packaging, CF Napa Brand Design; Second Place Winner in Logo Design, Onfire. Design.

Citizen Design Award

Each year, the PRINT Awards highlight a free-to-enter Citizen Design Award to celebrate design work focused on one annually chosen social issue. With societies facing global challenges like climate change, economic instability, and technological shifts, our Citizen Design Award this year will honor work that speaks to social justice.

Social Justice ensures that all people are entitled to human rights and societal respect regardless of race, gender, religion, health, and economic status. Discrimination in the form of economic and educational inequities, combined with enduring legacies of oppression continue to impact many communities, creating toxic cycles of privilege and disadvantage.

Design can profoundly influence social justice through graphic tools that amplify awareness and drive change. Design can make complex issues more accessible, spark debate, inform audiences, and motivate positive engagement. This year’s PRINT Citizen Design category recognizes and celebrates the most impactful work that fosters empathy and action. From social awareness campaigns to apps, community-centered design projects, infographics, posters, social media graphics, and interactive experiences, Citizen Design will honor work that strives to make our world more compassionate and just.

2024 PRINT Awards First Place Winner in Design for Social Impact, Clinton Carlson and Team.

Our 2025 Jury

With a global jury representing a wide range of disciplines, each entry will continue to be judged on four key criteria: Craft, Longevity, Innovation, and Originality. Top winners will be featured on PRINTmag.com and receive trophies, certificates, and social media promotion. We’ll be adding jury members in the next few weeks. In the meantime, we welcome a few here!

A few of the 2025 Jury Members: Marisa Sanchez-Dunning, Bennett Peji, Jennifer Rittner, Eleazar Ruiz, Lara McCormick, Mike Perry, and Miller McCormick. More jurors are to be announced soon!

The 2025 PRINT Awards Presenting Sponsor

The team at PepsiCo Design + Innovation believes that good design is a meaningful experience. A functional product. A rich story. A beautiful object. Design can be fun, convenient, precious, or fearless, but good design is always an act of respect, empathy, and love.

That’s why PepsiCo Design + Innovation has joined PRINT this year as our Presenting Sponsor—to recognize, honor and, above all, to celebrate the joy of design in all its forms. That’s why PepsiCo Design and Innovation has joined PRINT this year as our Presenting Sponsor—to recognize, honor, and, above all, celebrate the joy of design in all its forms!

Dates and Deadlines

As in years past, we’ve broken the deadline schedule for the awards into four simple tiers—Early Bird, Regular, Late, and Final Call. The earlier you enter, the more you save because it helps us plan judging schedules and other tasks in advance. Enter now for the best price! (And it’s worth noting that to enable students to enter, the pricing is consistent across the board no matter when they submit their work.)

Join us as we recognize the talent that colors our world and celebrate the beauty of fresh ideas, bold solutions, and impactful storytelling. From emerging talents to seasoned visionaries, each submission is a testament to the boundless growth of design.

Submit your work today, and let’s cultivate the next generation of creative vision!

The post Announcing The 2025 PRINT Awards Call For Entries appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

The Artifacts from the Eames Collection is a series of catalogs that comprehensively documents pieces from the Eames Institute collection, making these iconic designs more widely accessible to all, thus further advancing the legacy of 20th-century designers Ray and Charles Eames.

The Eames Institute has already offered themed virtual exhibitions and is thrilled to continue its growth into the physical print medium. Forty-thousand+ objects have been lovingly collected, preserved, restored, and documented by the Eames Institute so far, with Artifacts from the Eames Collection presenting curated selections from these objects in six thematically themed catalogs: Tables, Ray’s Hand, Eames Aluminum Group, Toys & Play, Steinberg Meets the Eames, and Postcards. (The first five have already been released, with the Postcards catalog coming soon.) Many of the objects featured in these editions have never been seen before, and all have been newly photographed to highlight design details.

Each catalog includes an introductory note from Llisa Demetrios, Chief Curator of the Eames Institute and granddaughter of Ray and Charles, and an essay written by a leading design expert. The catalogs also present a variety of archival material and photography from the Eames Office, Library of Congress, and the archives of Herman Miller and Vitra.

The catalogs are softcover with a short cover wrap and a special insert and range from 122–172 pages. They are available for purchase from the Eames Institute here.

The post All the Eames That’s Fit to Print appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

The new type palette pays respects to its successors (Dennis Ortiz-Lopez’s condensed slab serifs with high contrast display of the 90s, and Jim Parkinson’s enduring and curvaceous 1981-2018 wordmark) but takes the overall aesthetic in a new direction. The team’s ethos for the redesign: “Make it look like Rolling Stone, without directly sampling bygone issues,” said Schwartz.

It would have been easy to slip into nostalgia for this project, but we didn’t want to go that route. Nostalgia engages only superficially with history, trafficking in tropes of an idealized past.

Christian Schwartz, Commercial Type partner and co-founder

For headlines, Tim Ripper designed Rolling Stone Slab, softening the potential for solid walls of screaming text with subtly rounded serifs. This is an evolution of his work on the condensed weights of Commercial Type’s Successor typeface, a reinterpretation of the 19th-century English slab serif (aka Egyptian or Antique). The italic version gets its personality from curvy tails and cursive-like detailing, harkening back a century or so.

French calligrapher Julien Priez, a relatively new addition to the Commercial Type team, designed the body text and subheadlines, riffing off the team’s Feature Flat and Deck typefaces. Priez added swashes to both the italic and Roman versions; the result lends a whimsical note to artist names, in particular.

I have redesigned Rolling Stone at least four times now and this is my absolute favorite.

Joe Hutchison, Rolling Stone creative director

For more, read Commercial Type’s case study.

Images courtesy of Commercial Type.

The post Commercial Type Samples Custom and Off-the-Shelf for the Best ‘Rolling Stone’ Redesign Yet appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

According to the publication, the mission is to inspire children to embrace the joys of healthy food. (CHEW acknowledges that not all families have access to food and will be donating 10% of the magazine sales to food banks, as well as offering a 30% discount to schools.) Studio Anorak’s founder Cathy Olmedillas says, “There increasingly seems to be a disconnect between the food on our plates and its source. In our humble way, with CHEW we want to educate children (and their families!) about how incredible a simple vegetable or fruit is, and inspire them to cook and eat healthily.”

Below, Olmedillas and I bite into CHEW.

What inspired you to produce CHEW?
CHEW almost came instead of DOT, 10 years ago, but I ended up publishing a children’s food book, which was called Food is Fun. The reason I launched DOT first is because parents were asking us for a younger version of Anorak, so I obliged! In the summer, I revisited the plans I had for CHEW, and I was struck how fully formed the ideas for it were. Around the same time, I came across some depressing stats about children’s diets in the U.K. and USA, so it felt like CHEW could be of use, too. Not just a pretty mag!

Why did you launch it as a print magazine?
I think the magazine format helps children to get interested in many different things, outside of the school curriculum. It’s also less of a commitment than a book. It’s an easily digestible format (pun intended!) and I hope that it will ignite curiosity in children about the joys of simple food and the amazing larder Mother Nature gives us.

What has the early feedback been like?
So far, so good—everyone we have shown it to has fallen in love with the mixture of beautiful illustrations, all done by Sara Arosio, and the fun content.

Do you have enough funding to continue publishing it?
Yes, we have funding aside for six editions, which is nearly two years, as the magazine is quarterly.

Do you believe the magazine will reach its audience? And who is the audience?
Well, I hope so and think we will, because we have a good network of parents who follow us already. The audience is children aged 6+ and their families. Like with DOT and Anorak, I would love for CHEW to become a shared experience, but this time around food.

What is your favorite part of the magazine?
I love everything about it. I feel like a spoilt magazine-mamma with this one! If I had to pick one thing, it would be how we take one humble fruit, the orange, and build a whole around it: from a wacky comic about oranges and lemons fighting for centuries, to a cow that steals oranges, educational pieces about the history of the orange trade, and recipes.

The post The Daily Heller: Yummy, I’ve Got “Chew” in My Tummy appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

Everybody knows that in May 2023, a jury found Donald Trump liable for defaming and abusing E. Jean Carroll, and awarded her $5 million. And everybody also knows that in January 2024, another jury found Trump liable for defamation against her to the tune of $83.3 million. P.S., with interest, his payout will now total over $100 million.

But not everybody remembers—because we were guppies, and because, ahem, Print is Dead, y’all—that E. Jean is a goddamn swashbucking magazine-world legend: a writer of such style, wit, and sheer ballsy joie de vivre that she carved out a name for herself in the boys club of New Journalism, writing juicy and iconic stories in the seventies and eighties for Outside, Esquire, Playboy, and more—and then finally leapt over to women’s magazines, where she held down the role of advice columnist at Elle for, wait for it, 27 years. Elle is where we intersected with E. Jean and where we first saw up close her boundless enthusiasm and generosity for womankind.

We’ll also never forget sitting at one of the magazine’s annual fancypants dinners honoring Women in Hollywood—these are real star-studded affairs, folks—when Jennifer Aniston stood up to receive her award and started her speech with a shoutout to her beloved “Auntie E.,” whose advice she and millions of other American women had devoured, and lived by, for decades.

Here’s the truth: The woman that most of the world came to know through the most harrowing circumstances imaginable really is and has always been that fearless, that unsinkable. It’s not a persona—it’s the genuine article. And when you hear her stories about how hard she slogged away for decades to finally get her big break in publishing, listeners, you will have a whole new respect for her.

As E. Jean tells us herself in this interview, she does very, very little press. So we couldn’t be more honored that our friend and idol and the Spread’s most enthusiastic hype woman sat down after hours with us for this interview. We just hope we did her justice!

Print Is Dead (Long Live Print!) is a podcast about magazines and the people who made (and make) them. Magazines that combined thought-provoking attitudes and values with a distinctive look and feel, and cast a long and powerful shadow on American culture and public discourse. Hear stories and learn lessons from legendary designers, editors, writers, publishers, photographers, illustrators, photo editors, and more—stories and lessons that capture a magical history of innovation and inspiration, and that point the way forward. We’ll go deep into the lives and careers of this astonishingly talented group of creators, and tease out what these giants—past and present—have to teach the next generation of creators.

If you’re in the magazine business—if you’re in any business focused on content creation—this podcast is for you.

This episode is a special collaboration with The Spread and is made possible by PIDLLP sponsors Commercial Type, Mountain Gazette, and Freeport Press.

The team behind Print is Dead (Long Live Print!) also produces The Full Bleed, a podcast about the future of magazines and the magazines of the future.

The post She’s Our Type | E. Jean Carroll appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

“When I dreamed up this idea, there was no place for Muslims of a left-leaning political ideology to engage in critical discourse about the world we live in and how we want it to look different,” she says, noting that there were indeed magazines focusing on Black Muslim identity like Sapelo Square, or gender identity, like altMuslimah—but nothing broadly focused on the left side of the political spectrum. “Islam informs so much of my political values, and I knew the same was true for others. I saw that magazines such as Jewish Currents had created this space to critically reflect on community and politics, and I thought that was so needed in the American Muslim community.”

Ahmed partnered with creative director Arsh Raziuddin—former AD of The Atlantic and The New York Times’ Opinion section, and former creative director of Bon Appétit—and Acacia was born online and semi-annually in print.

Its first issue released earlier this year, covering a broad spectrum of politics and culture, with fiction, poetry and art to boot: In “The Myth of Bodily Autonomy,” Natalia Latif explored the impact of the overturning of Roe v. Wade and the Muslim response; Sarah Aziza penned an essay on growing up the child of a Palestinian Muslim father and an American Christian mother; Shamira Ibrahim documented the use and impact of “Arab scales” in Western music; Mariam Rahmani and Lamya H discussed Hijab Butch Blues: A Memoir.

The latest issue, released this month, meanwhile, focuses on Palestine. There’s Sanya Mansoor’s “Fury at the Ballot Box”; Matene Toure’s interview with scholar Zoé Samudzi on the historical use of the word genocide; Maira Khwaja’s look at torture, from Guantanamo to Gaza; a profile of poet Mosab Abu Toha.

Underscoring it all: Raziuddin’s deft design and art direction, supplemented by visual contributions from some of the industry’s best creatives. 

Below, Ahmed and Raziuddin tell us more about the publication, which is further building out a community through sold-out launches and other events. 

Tell us about the need for a publication like this today.
Ahmed: It’s no secret that Muslim-, Arab- and Palestinian-allied journalists are being censored in mainstream media, especially in the last year. We think in light of that censorship, it’s more critical than ever that Muslim voices have a platform to report honestly about the state of our world. 

Raziuddin: This kind of censorship seeps into the world of art, affecting what stories we can share visually and how they are commissioned. It’s important to involve Muslim artists and photographers in a wide range of topics, so we aren’t limited to narratives of war, pain, and exoticism.

Arsh, at what point did you get involved? How did the two of you first connect?
Raziuddin: Hira and I had a meet-cute in an elevator. We were both going to another literary magazine party and introduced ourselves. I asked if she was a writer and she said she’s starting a lefty Muslim magazine. The rest was history. 

Tell us about the significance of the name Acacia, and how it represents your overall mission.
Ahmed: Our name is a reference to the acacia tree (Vachellia seyal). It’s generally thought to be a tree under which Prophet Muhammad and early followers of Islam sought respite and prayed. In that same tradition, Acacia is a gathering place.

Raziuddin: I imagine the tree taking on various forms, adapting alongside different letters, abstracting itself into varied versions as the magazine evolves.

What made you decide to launch Acacia in print?
Ahmed: Publishing a print edition allows us to build a tangible and enduring legacy of American Muslim political, cultural and artistic production. The internet may seem like forever, but everything on it is ultimately ephemeral. Because most of us don’t own the platforms that host our data, apart from some commendable archival efforts, we have limited tools to preserve our stories for future generations.

We hope that years from now, the back issues of Acacia will tell the story of what it meant to be a Muslim in America during critical political and cultural moments. 

Hira Ahmed

Tell us a bit about the editorial breakdown/architecture of the magazine, and how it’s arranged.
Raziuddin: Acacia is broken down into different sections, similar but not necessarily dependent on the front, middle, and back of a book, like a traditional magazine. We have a mix of personal essays, reported essays, feature stories, interviews, poetry, and a photo essay.

How have you selected the issue themes so far?
Ahmed: Our first issue was finalized before Oct. 7, 2023. In some ways, that feels like a different world, and the American Muslim community is certainly in a very different place since the beginning of the genocide. But in the pre-Oct. 7th world, we wanted to tell stories that were affecting us intra-communally. Our cover story “Navigating Culture Wars” from the first issue really captures that effort. It was about rising homophobia in the American Muslim community and specifically an open letter penned by prominent American Muslim imams condemning queerness. I think it resonated with readers because it was something everyone was talking about in the group chat, but, prior to Acacia, there was no space to formally unpack and analyze the subject matter of that story. 

The second issue is about Palestine. The genocide has been an all-consuming issue for American Muslims in the past year. It’s hard to imagine how that isn’t the case for everyone. As the genocide worsens, Gaza moves further back into the pages of newspapers. It’s a real shame. 

What has been your approach to the stories within? You have assembled such a powerful collection across a broad swath.
Ahmed: We are lucky that such incredible writers want to work with us! There is no shortage of talent in our communities and it’s been such an honor to be able to highlight that. A lot of writers are already thinking about the issues we discuss in the magazine, and we provide a home for that writing. Other times, as fans of certain writers, we will commission pieces that we think our readers would want to read. We have a brilliant group of editors who commission pieces and we deliberate together about what makes it into the issue. 

What are your favorite pieces that you’ve run to date?
Raziuddin: It’s hard to pick just one favorite, but I really loved Shamira Ibrahim’s piece on the Arab Scale from Issue 1, and Matene Toure’s interview on genocide in the latest issue. Amir Hamja’s portrait of Noura Erakat in this second issue was absolutely stunning and complemented her interview perfectly.

What has been the most challenging part of the whole endeavor so far?
Ahmed: It’s a logistically large undertaking.

Raziuddin: Especially with a small team, we’re really breaking new ground. There aren’t many folks doing what we’re doing in this way, and we’re creating our own path.

Tell us about the look you set out to achieve through the design.
Raziuddin: I want to strike the right balance between showcasing our community’s artwork and styles that we cherish, while also embracing a modern editorial language and design system. It’s a tricky line to walk.

Tell us a bit about the first two covers.
Raziuddin: In our inaugural issue, we were so lucky to feature Cassi Namoda as our cover artist. Her work is so beautiful—steeped in history and rich with narrative. Sad Man With Roses (awaits his beloved), 2020, captures a tender, poetic quality that was a perfect fit for our first cover. …

For our second cover, we were honored to feature a photograph by Taysir Batniji, a gifted Palestinian artist born in Gaza. His photo essay, Fathers, carries a haunting depth. Each image tells a story of lineage and family, echoing profound themes of loss and memory. It captures what we leave behind in times of war and genocide, highlighting how we, as a community, navigate and reshape our history. This issue confronts the ongoing devastation in Palestine and its broader impact on the Muslim world, while also addressing the rising tide of Islamophobia. We’re thankful for the artists who help us uncover and share the truth through their work. This series was captured back in 2006, many years before Oct. 7, 2023. 

Overall, what has the reception been like so far?
Ahmed: We’ve been really moved by the response. There’s nothing more rewarding than having a journalist or a fellow reader express gratitude for Acacia. My favorite anecdote is when we heard from a college student that he was going to cite one of our stories in his senior thesis. 

Raziuddin: A friend shared that a young Muslim girl, a budding artist, cried when she held the magazine. It made me cry!

Editor’s Note: PRINT Magazine is committed to publishing a diversity of opinions.

The post Meet ‘Acacia’, a New Print Magazine for the Muslim Left appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

Be sure to subscribe to our emails to learn when and where to enter your best work this year!

If any brand has an opportunity to take advantage of its leadership position in the category and elevate itself from a functional to an emotional brand, Bear Naked can. The team from Leo Burnett Chicago designed a campaign for hikers (and adult outdoor recreation enthusiasts in general) to think “Bear Naked” instead of “granola” because the company is a brand people love for its real ingredients, incredible taste, and commitment to the things they care about.

As part of this campaign, Leo Burnett designed a guidebook, “The Guide to Hiking Naked: The Essential Handbook for Nude Hikers,” winning first place in The 2024 PRINT Awards’ Brochures and Catalogs category.

Powered by Gaia GPS, a popular trail app, the design team deployed a new tool that replaces what used to be primarily done through word-of-mouth, marking trails as either friendly or unfriendly. The designers created an ownable moment for Bear Naked, kicking off on Naked Hiking Day 2023, that not only brought attention to the activity but empowered current (and curious) naked hikers to explore nature and reap all of its benefits confidently and safely. They achieved this through a bold, multi-pronged experience that grabbed the attention of hikers and non-hikers alike through its bare-all, grass-roots approach.

To get the word out, the team partnered with the name in all things outdoor, Outside Inc. Together, they embarked on a journey that included custom articles and how-to’s for enjoying hiking nude, partnership with influential outdoor personalities, video content delivered via CTV in outdoor-related contexts, cross-platform social engagement encouraging use of the app, a home-page takeover, and media outreach to garner earned coverage.

Oh, and so hikers don’t have to worry about leaving their granola at home, the design team created a hiker’s belt that holds a strategically placed bag of granola to cover up those who dare to be bare.

The post Leo Burnett Chicago Gets Bare Naked appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

Just about every magazine Richard Baker worked for has died. Even one called Life.

Also dead: The Washington Post Magazine, Vibe, Premiere, and Parade. Another, Saveur, also died but has recently been resurrected. And Us Magazine? A mere shadow of its former self.

Sadly, Baker’s career narrative is not that uncommon. (That’s why you’re listening to a podcast called Print Is Dead).

But Richard Baker is a survivor. He’s survived immigrating from Jamaica as a kid. He’s survived the sudden and premature loss of three influential and beloved mentors. And he’s survived a near-fatal medical emergency in the New York subway.

Yet, in the face of all that carnage, Richard Baker just keeps on going. To this day, he’s living the magazine dream—“classic edition”—as a designer at a sturdy newsstand publication (Inc. magazine), in a brick-and-mortar office (7 World Trade Center), working with real people, and making something beautiful with ink and paper.

Print Is Dead (Long Live Print!) is a podcast about magazines and the people who made (and make) them. Magazines that combined thought-provoking attitudes and values with a distinctive look and feel, and cast a long and powerful shadow on American culture and public discourse. Hear stories and learn lessons from legendary designers, editors, writers, publishers, photographers, illustrators, photo editors, and more—stories and lessons that capture a magical history of innovation and inspiration, and that point the way forward. We’ll go deep into the lives and careers of this astonishingly talented group of creators, and tease out what these giants—past and present—have to teach the next generation of creators.

If you’re in the magazine business—if you’re in any business focused on content creation—this podcast is for you.

This episode is a special collaboration with The Spread and is made possible by PIDLLP sponsors Commercial Type, Mountain Gazette, and Freeport Press.

The team behind Print is Dead (Long Live Print!) also produces The Full Bleed, a podcast about the future of magazines and the magazines of the future.

The post Soul Survivor | Richard Baker appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

These are some of the questions UK-based graphic designer Conor Foran found himself asking, spurred by his own journey with stammering. This reflection led to his development of the Dysfluent Mono typeface along with his wider project, Dysfluent, in 2017.

Through art, design, and curation, Dysfluent intersects the lived experience of dysfluency with creativity, activism, and social justice. Through Dysfluent, Foran collaborates with people who stammer, artists, speech therapists, academics, activists, organizations, and allies. One component of the Dysfluent project is an independent magazine of the same name, that explores the lived experience of stammering. Designed by Foran, the publication deploys the Dysfluent Mono typeface throughout its eye-catching and thoughtful pages, that visually portray the sounds, rhythms, patterns, and experiences of a stammer.

Foran has released two issues of the magazine, with a third currently in production. A digital version of issues one and two are available through Dysfluent’s online shop, with a hard copy of issue two distributed in the UK, Europe, Asia, and North America by Antenne Books.

More than a magazine, Foran has created a movement. Using his skills as a graphic designer and keen editorial design eye, through Dysfluent, Foran has helped cultivate a community centered around celebration and reclamation for those who stutter.

Stammering pride contends that verbal diversity is rich with meaning in its own right, and deserves to exist outside of a clinical lens of needing to be “fixed” or “cured.” 

Today, October 22nd, marks International Stuttering Awareness Day, a moment dedicated to sharing information about the realities of stuttering more widely and honoring the stuttering community at large. We’re thrilled to highlight Dysfluent and Foran’s work as part of the international celebration. Foran answered a few of my questions about the Dysfluent story below, including reflections on his editorial design, developing the Stammering Pride flag, and what he has planned next for the project.

Can you describe Dysfluent and its mission? What are you hoping to accomplish with Dysfluent?

Dysfluent is a collaborative and creative practice about stammering, a speech disability (also known as stuttering). Through art and design, it intersects the lived experience of dysfluency with creativity, activism, and social justice. So far, it has produced a stammering font, a magazine, a stammering pride flag, and, most recently, a billboard for Whitney Museum’s 2024 Biennial in New York City.

Dysfluent is led by me, Conor Foran. I collaborate with people who stammer, artists, speech therapists, academics, activists, organizations, and allies from around the world to contribute to a growing stuttering culture based around pride. Stammering pride contends that verbal diversity is rich with meaning in its own right and deserves to exist outside of a clinical lens of needing to be “fixed” or “cured.”

What’s the origin story of Dysfluent? How did the idea for a magazine reflecting the stammering community come about?

Dysfluent as a project happened very much organically, as I investigated my relationship with my own speech. While I am a proud person who stammers now, I wasn’t back in 2017 when I started creating the Dysfluent Mono typeface and magazine in college. Looking back, the project was a form of self-therapy that I still practice today. 

My experience with speech therapy was limited, and I wasn’t part of the stammering community as I am now. When creating content for the magazine, I met another person who stammers for the first time. What was an intensely personal project naturally evolved into a community-facing one. I’m very grateful to the stammering community that has embraced all the Dysfluent projects, from everyday people who stammer and parents of kids who stammer, to academics and therapists. 

The typeface is used in the magazine to proudly represent the voice of the interviewees. The magazine explores the lived experience of stammering through interviews and essays, facilitating contrasting and challenging views. It has published two issues so far. 

When it comes to the design of the magazine (and your beautiful website, merch, flag, etc.) can you speak to some of the visual choices you made to reflect stammering and how those were developed?

The typeface Dysfluent Mono is based on the three kinds of stammering: repetitions, prolongations, and blocks. I made special letterforms that repeat parts of themselves until they form the actual character, as well as characters that stretch their forms. Blocks are represented as multiple spaces. While ideas of stammering pride didn’t really exist when I created the typeface, looking back, the approach I took was very pride-coded. I interpreted my speech as forming over time, rather than being fragmented or broken. To consider stammering or dysfluency as not the antithesis of fluency is still a radical idea for a lot of people. 

To consider stammering or dysfluency as not the antithesis of fluency is still a radical idea for a lot of people.

For Issue 2 two, I asked how can a magazine itself stammer? The cover unfolds to reveal an inner dialogue amongst stammering letterforms. The issue’s title stammers across the spine. The “pull quotes” remain in their paragraphs, challenging the idea of the perfectly said phrase. Each interview is set in Dysfluent Mono. The expressive, typographic illustrations are inspired by the uniqueness of the interviewee’s voice. The magazine creatively questions society’s obsession with hyper-fluency, which leaves little room for organic moments in language.

Outside of the magazine, the typeface has been used in ZEIT and the “Stuttering Can Create Time” billboard for Whitney Museum’s 2024 Biennial with the collective People Who Stutter Create.

How have your skills as a graphic designer given you the power to make such an impact in stammering awareness?

My interest in typography in college laid the foundations for me to reconsider how my own voice could be represented in text. Making stammering visually beautiful, striking, and in some ways appealing empowers, me (and other people) to be proud of how I talk. I think it also speaks to a wider idea of what it means to be legible in both a linguistic and typographic sense. There is value to be found in visual and auditory dysfluency.

Making stammering visually beautiful, striking, and in some ways appealing empowers, me (and other people) to be proud of how I talk.

The medical model of needing to “fix” the stammer has dominated the stammering community up until a few years ago. As such, the graphic design of stammering only existed in clinical or organizational spaces. A lot of this visual design relies on tropes such as mouths, speech bubbles, and splintered, fractured, or broken typography.

There is now an emerging stuttering culture of visual art, design, music, poetry, and literature that explore the generative power of dysfluency by people who stammer, such as JJJJJerome Ellis, Willemijn Bolks, Paul Aston, and Jordan Scott. I consider my work in the stammering community to push past awareness and instead instill action. As the world becomes more and more accepting of difference, why shouldn’t stammering be included too?

I consider my work in the stammering community to push past awareness and instead instill action. As the world becomes more and more accepting of difference, why shouldn’t stammering be included too?

What was the development process of the Stammering Pride flag like? Can you unpack the design for me a bit?

The Making Waves flag was made by seven people who stammer from various countries: JJJJJerome Ellis, Kristel Kubart, Laura Lascău, Patrick Campbell, Paul Aston, Ramdeep Roman, and myself. We’ve titled it “a stammering pride flag” as it’s up to people who stammer if they identify with this design and approach we have taken. This flag is an invitation.

Water has long been associated with stammering and speech. We were eager to build upon work by the stammering community in a meaningful way, emphasizing that stuttering is as natural as whirling waves and calm creeks. The design visualizes three values: the sea-green symbolizes the existing community that has used this color for stuttering awareness since 2009; the wave motif symbolizes stammering as a natural, varied phenomenon; and the ultramarine symbolizes the progress and passion of the stuttering pride movement.

The flag has been flown by people all around the world. Kids who stammer and their parents have also responded to it so well, which has been a really amazing surprise!

What has been the biggest challenge you’ve faced with this project so far? What’s been the most rewarding aspect?

The biggest challenge I’ve faced is finding time to work on it! While I feel like I’ve produced a lot under the Dysfluent name, I still have so many ideas I want to develop. But because it’s a niche, there isn’t much money to be made, so it can be hard to devote time to the work.

My biggest reward has definitely been finding community. It still amazes me when I get an email or message from someone in a far-away country wanting to collaborate or just describing how Dysfluent represents them so well. The project also allows me to be a designer, artist, writer, facilitator… basically anything that needs to be done. While I enjoy being a generalist, it’s also taught me the importance of collaboration. 

What do you have planned next for Dysfluent?

The next Dysfluent-ism is an upcoming visual art exhibition in London, titled “Wouldn’t You Rather Talk Like Us?” with painter Paul Aston. It’s opening on November 29 and is supported by Arts Council England. The hand-made Making Waves flag will be on show in addition to some new work I can’t wait for people to see!

I’m also excited to start working on Issue 3 of the magazine next year. Overall, I’ll continue to position Dysfluent as a collaborative practice— forming alliances with people who stammer, therapists, and academics, to create work that both celebrates and challenges what we think about stammering.

The post Conor Foran Spreads Stammering Pride through ‘Dysfluent’ Magazine appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

One good thing about the current humans-vs-machines brouhaha is that a lot of very smart people are throwing very smart words at it. Just one of many noteworthy passages from Stephen Fry’s recent talk at King’s College, AI: The means to an end or a means to the end?:

“Just as the success of the automobile was enabled by enormous supplies of crude oil composed of microscopic bits of ancient life, rendered useful in the refineries of Rockefeller and others, so the success of Ai is enabled by enormous supplies of crude data — data composed of microscopic bits of human archive, interchange, writing, playing, communicating, broadcasting which we in our billions have freely dropped into the sediment, and which the eager Rockefellers of today’s big tech are only too happy to drill for, refine and sell on back to us.”

It’s incredible, terrifying, thought-provoking.¹ The gist of it (and a handy metaphor to help keep grasp of this nebulous, abstract thing): AI is a river that must be canalised, channeled, sluiced, dredged, dammed, and overseen.

Slight tangent (courtesy of A. R. Younce): engineers, fluvial geomorphologists, and the unintended consequences of trying to change the course of a river.

Anyway, fluviality aside, you really need to read Fry’s whole thing, but this postscript is particularly worth adopting:

“You may have noticed that I render Artificial Intelligence as “Ai” not “AI” throughout this piece – this my (fruitless no doubt) attempt to make life easier for people called Albert, Alfred, Alexander et al (ho ho). In sans serif fonts AI with a majuscule “i” is ambiguous. How does the great Pacino feel when he reads that “Al is a threat to humanity?” So let’s all write as Ai not AI.”

I’m sure Adobe wouldn’t be happy with that, but I much prefer it. I also like how it puts the emphasis on the artificial rather than the intelligence.

Another good read: Ted Chiang on why Ai isn’t going to make great art, for The New Yorker. I rather liked this analogy:

“As the linguist Emily M. Bender has noted, teachers don’t ask students to write essays because the world needs more student essays. The point of writing essays is to strengthen students’ critical-thinking skills; in the same way that lifting weights is useful no matter what sport an athlete plays, writing essays develops skills necessary for whatever job a college student will eventually get. Using ChatGPT to complete assignments is like bringing a forklift into the weight room; you will never improve your cognitive fitness that way.”

Okay now for some other hyperlinks.

Counting down the days until Bong Joon Ho’s Mickey 17 is right here in my eyeballs. Definite elements of Moon in there, but mostly, it reminds me of the absurd cloney antics of the Paranoia RPG.

XKCD’s surprisingly useful guide to figuring out the age of an undated map. Finally, an opportunity to use the (NUMBER OF YEMENS) + (NUMBER OF GERMANYS) formula.

Companies paying freelancers. Shockingly accurate.

Very excited to discover that at some point, Rebellion bought the rights to the Bitmap Bros. back catalogue, and you can buy Speedball t-shirts. I’ve never smacked the buy now button so fast.²

McSweeney’s latest issue is a lunchbox. Because, of course it is. To celebrate 25 years of independent publishing, the tin-box magazine is filled with baseball-inspired author cards, poem pencils, and never-before-seen artwork from Art Spiegelman.

1. Although I did have to correct him on one point: he confuses Dartford for Dartmouth! What a blithering idiot! This officially makes me smarter than Stephen Fry. ↩︎
2. Please feel free to shout ICE CREEEAM at me if you see me wearing mine in public. This reference will make sense to about four of you. ↩︎

This was originally posted on Meanwhile, a Substack dedicated to inspiration, fascination, and procrastination from the desk of designer Daniel Benneworth-Gray.

Image courtesy of the author.

The post Meanwhile: No. 213 appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

Be sure to subscribe to our emails to learn when and where to enter your best work this year!

Felipe Goes is a graphic designer, journalist, and creative director whose work centers around the development of creative concepts and strategies for various design communication systems. Goes collaborates with clients to pave a new road for content creation that pushes the boundaries of multimedia journalism and reimagines existing work with a personalized twist. With a master’s degree in Graphic Design and Editorial Projects from Universidade do Porto, Goes has worked as a design educator since 2013.

Goes’ work on Alucinação earned him third place in the Books Entire Package category of The 2024 PRINT Awards. Alucinação is a poem written by Samuel Maciel Martins and was curated and edited by Rodrigo Marques. The book retains dense and precise language to capture the poetry found within the everyday experiences of Brazil’s young black residents.

The book, printed solely in black, boasts a relatively uncomplicated visual design at first glance but portrays a complex and intentional visual narrative that not only catches but maintains the audience’s attention. The book’s dust jacket is littered with a collection of abstract fluorescent shapes that contrast with its minimalist nature and play off of the text’s carefully calculated mathematical relationship, creating a geometric yet fluid dynamic. The stitching serves as a graphical element that connects with the title of the work and maintains cohesiveness throughout the piece.

The various choices made throughout this project stem from a focus on visual aesthetics, meticulous attention to detail, and the essential visual traditions necessary for the creation of a final tangible product that exudes care and imaginative fervor.

The post Felipe Goes’ Thoughtful & Complex Book Design for ‘Alucinação’ appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

“Letters are magic” is the watchword of Jessica Hische, one of the world’s leading lettering artists. “Letters are an amazing playground,” she says, “a playground for art and creativity. They’re an art form that gets kids — and everyone — believing they’re artists.” But it’s inaccurate to call Hische “just” a lettering artist. She’s a bestselling author, a graphic designer with an enviable client list, and an illustrator with a delightfully sophisticated style.

She’s also the mother of three school-age children, which gives her an insider advantage when it comes to creating books that kids will love and parents will want to buy (and read aloud and collect and display). It’s no accident that her books‚ which are one hundred percent Hische productions from the cover and spine to the acknowledgments page — have sold up to 200,000 copies each.

On October 22 — that’s next Tuesday — her fifth picture book, My First Book of Fancy Letters, will be released by Penguin Random House, and Hische is currently on tour.

What places does she most enjoy visiting? Elementary schools, of course, like the two pictured above, where she’s introducing her 2021 New York Times bestseller Tomorrow I’ll Be Brave. “Kids at first don’t know what a lettering artist is,” she explains. (For a detailed explanation yourself, please see her 2015 book In Progress: Inside a Lettering Artist’s Process from Pencil to Vector.)

To break the ice at a school visit, Hische might ask, “Who has letters on their shirt?” Many kids always raise their hands, so she explains, “An artist drew those letters and made them into what they wanted to express.”

She then demonstrates that letters can have all kinds of forms and meanings. As long as the basic shape of the alphabet letter is clear, it can be Athletic, Bubbly, Creepy … or whatever you, the artist, want it to be. I personally appreciate that each letter is shown as a grown-up capital and a baby lowercase because 95 percent of the letters we read in text are lowercase. Kids who start first grade only knowing the uppercase letters are at a big disadvantage.

Spreads ABC and DEF from My First Book of Fancy Letters, © Jessica Hische, 2024

Hische might then ask, “What’s your favorite thing?” If a student says, “a rainbow,” she might encourage them to draw an ‘R’ made from a rainbow, like the one in the spread below. If another student answers, “A rocket ship,” you can already visualize the kind of ‘R’ the child will draw. This game has only one rule: you must draw the alphabet letter that matches the concept or word. So, if the word is “Prickly,” like in My First Book of Fancy Letters, in which each letter illustrates an adjective, the ‘P’ is a prickly green cactus.” The ‘F’ is definitely Flowery. And the ‘Y’ is as Yummy as a cookie with pink icing and sprinkles.

Spreads PQR and XYZ from My First Book of Fancy Letters, © Jessica Hische, 2024

“I’m not there to sell books,” Hische says of her school visits. “I’m there to inspire the kids, especially when they’re still at the age when their brains are mushy sponges. Even if the book is not specifically about letters, they’ll walk away inspired to draw letters.” Her way of organizing a talk or pitch — totally involving the audience in a creative process — could be a model for all of us.

A quick stroll through Hische’s website tells you that “lettering artist-author-designer-illustrator-mom” is still an incomplete bio. Hische is a true entrepreneur. In addition to 20 years — and counting — as a design firm principal, creating logos, posters, book jackets, packaging, and all kinds of cool stuff like holiday cookie jars for A-list clients, she owns two retail stores in her adopted hometown of Oakland, California. She describes Drawling as a kids’ art supply store and Jessica Hische &Friends as a showcase for her books and lots of flourish-y things she’s designed: limited-edition prints, posters, apparel, jewelry, and note cards. Many of the products are on the ‘shop’ section of her website, where font packages of her six original typefaces are available for sale and download — so that you, too, can design with very fancy letters.

A few examples from the extensive Jessica Hische portfolio. (l-r) Top row: Spread from the book Tomorrow You’ll Be Brave; Popcorn can from the Neiman Marcus 2022 holiday packaging suite; Poster for all-star Scott Rudin film. Center: Neiman Marcus Christmas cookie jar, based on a ceramic tree that Hische’s grandmother put out every holiday season; Promotion for a master class she teaches for Skillshare featuring her hands refining the Mailchimp logo. Bottom: Poster for the American Red Cross encouraging vaccination; Main title design and poster for Lionsgate film; Poster for Comcast used as set decoration in a film in which E.T. reunites with Elliott’s earth family; Limited-edition print.

Hische is the first to admit that from kindergarten on, she was the one whose art was most often displayed on school bulletin boards. After attending public schools in the small town in Pennsylvania where she grew up, she became “a design major who did illustration on the side” at Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia, graduating in 2006 with a BFA. In 2007 she came to New York to be a junior designer at Louise Fili LTD, bringing her own historically-based swashes and ligatures to the firm’s work in logo, book, and postage stamp design. Not surprisingly, the job soon became a full-time senior designer position.

“When I’m looking to hire a designer,” Fili says, “I want to see at least one portfolio piece that I wish I’d done. Jessica’s was a set of postcards for the Twelve Days of Christmas, a showcase of her skills. From day one here, she was fearless. To anything I asked of her — Can you make this type look like spaghetti? Like embroidery? Oatmeal? Ribbons? — I received an affirmative response. And the lettering was always, of course, perfect.” 

In 2009, Hische began freelancing in New York, making a name for herself and winning just about every award and accolade in the business. In 2011, her husband, the musician and web designer, now Meta design director Russ Maschmeyer, was hired by Facebook, and they moved to the Bay Area.

Hische and Maschmeyer began growing their family in 2015, now with kids aged nine, seven, and five. “I have a complicated life,” she admits, “but I could never miss one of my kids’ first steps or birthday parties. We’ll even make the cake together. Part of the reason I’ve kept my businesses small — mostly just me — is to have a ton of flexibility around family stuff. I love going to their school plays, volunteering at the school, and bringing them to sports. I’m even taking karate with my middle son!”

Letters are an amazing playground.

Jessica Hische

Portrait of the family, © Rasmus Andersson

What are the most important things Jessica Hische wants everyone to know? One: that every letter in her books is hand-drawn, first in pencil, then in Illustrator or Procreate. Other than the glyphs in the font packages, each letter is a unique work of art. Two: that she hopes that the kids (and grown-ups) on your gift list will make their own fancy letters. And have lots of fun doing it.

With Hische, even an interview can be lots of fun.

Images courtesy of Jessica Hische, except where noted.

The post Letters are Magic in Jessica Hische’s New Children’s Book appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

In the past few weeks, Will Welch has taken a bit of flack for letting Beyoncé promote her new whiskey label on the cover of GQ’s October issue, with an interview that one X user described as “an intimate email exchange between GQ and several layers of Beyonce’s comms team.”

Whether that kind of thing rankles you or not—and yes, we asked him about it—in the five years since Welch took over, GQ seems to be doing as well or better than everybody else in the industry. Why? Ask around. He’s got a direct line to celebrities, who consider him a personal friend. He’s got real credibility with The Fashion People. And because of both of these things, advertisers love him.

Perhaps most importantly, his boss, Anna Wintour loves him.

The Atlanta-born Welch started his career at the alternative music and culture mag the Fader in the early aughts and jumped to GQ in 2007. For a decade under EIC Jim Nelson, he operated as the magazine’s fashion-and-culture svengali, eventually becoming the creative director of the magazine and the editor of the brand’s fashion spinoff, GQ Style.

In 2019, Wintour tapped him for the big job: Editor-in-Chief of GQ—a title that in 2020 was recast in the current Condé Nast survival mode as Global Editorial Director of GQ, overseeing 19 editions around the world.

After speaking with Welch only a few hours after the Beyonce cover dropped, we get what all the fuss is about. He is a great sport with good hair and just enough of a Southern accent who is confident-yet-never-cocky about his mission at GQ.

Let other people bemoan the “death of print.” Will Welch is having a blast at the Last Supper.

Read the full episode transcript here.

Print Is Dead (Long Live Print!) is a podcast about magazines and the people who made (and make) them. Magazines that combined thought-provoking attitudes and values with a distinctive look and feel, and cast a long and powerful shadow on American culture and public discourse. Hear stories and learn lessons from legendary designers, editors, writers, publishers, photographers, illustrators, photo editors, and more—stories and lessons that capture a magical history of innovation and inspiration, and that point the way forward. We’ll go deep into the lives and careers of this astonishingly talented group of creators, and tease out what these giants—past and present—have to teach the next generation of creators.

If you’re in the magazine business—if you’re in any business focused on content creation—this podcast is for you.

This episode is a special collaboration with The Spread and is made possible by PIDLLP sponsors Commercial Type, Mountain Gazette, and Freeport Press.

The team behind Print is Dead (Long Live Print!) also produces The Full Bleed, a podcast about the future of magazines and the magazines of the future.

The post Smiling Through the Apocalypse | Will Welch appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

A museum without walls was a groundbreaking concept at the outset. But, as they evolved and grew over the years, they felt the need for a name to better represent their work. CoDesign Collaborative expresses the collective nature of their ongoing journey.

While their name and visual identity are evolving, the organization’s core mission to inspire social change through the transformative power of design remains the same.

• Introduce the Public to the Power of Design: Showcasing how design shapes the world and empowering individuals to contribute to its improvement.
• Foster Community: Building a large, diverse network of designers and creative problem solvers motivated by social change.
• Diversify the Field: Creating opportunities for women, BIPOC, queer, and disabled people within the design profession.
• Tell Stories: Highlighting projects and individuals who embody designing for a better world.
• Facilitate Connections: Engaging stakeholders and volunteers in collaborative efforts to drive our shared impact vision.

Alongside the name change, this innovative organization also renamed its quarterly magazine from Design Museum Magazine to Unfold. Each season the publication takes a deep dive into one topic to explore its societal, cultural, and human impact. Guest editors and a curated list of expert contributing writers have explored topics such as policing, education, diversity in design, and healthcare.

In their fall issue just released, Unfold explores the intersection of technological innovation, social change, and meaningful impact. This edition, the first under the new magazine name, dives into technology’s potential to shape a more inclusive and sustainable future with critical topics such as responsible tech, climate tech, and digital accessibility, offering insights into how EmTech (emerging technology) can and should be addressing societal challenges.

With in-person and streaming events, school outreach, and innovative programs, CoDesign Collaborative brings together a global community of practicing designers, educators, social impact professionals, and a broad audience of individuals who care about how design impacts their world.

For more information about the organization, visit them at CoDesignCollaborative.org.

The post Design Museum Everywhere Has Rebranded as CoDesign Collaborative appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

As the world’s first 100% carbon-neutral travel company, Natural Habitat Adventures (“Nat Hab”) takes its mission of conservation through exploration seriously. Nat Hab facilitates intimate encounters with the Earth’s wildest places – and aims to be the most meaningful travel company on the planet while doing so.

Based in Boulder, Colorado (after being founded in New Jersey in 1985), Nat Hab creates life-enhancing nature and wildlife experiences for small groups of passionate explorers. The company’s innovative approach to travel, personal attention to detail, and industry-leading sustainability practices have made it the official travel partner of the World Wildlife Fund and one of Travel + Leisure’s Best Global Tour Operators. Nat Hab’s conservation ethos is as wide as it is deep, comprising carbon-neutral travel, waste reduction, local community support, and traveler inspiration—all aimed at delivering premium adventures while influencing the entire travel industry.

For Nat Hab, the sustainable adventure begins well before travelers embark on a journey. The company’s sustainable supply chain commitments include the choice of paper supplier for its annual catalog, which encompasses 192 pages of globe-spanning adventures from the Galapagos Islands to African safaris to Antarctica and the Arctic Circle. Nat Hab’s 2024/2025 catalog, World’s Greatest Nature Journeys, will be distributed to a record 170,000 recipients, a list carefully curated to promote the company’s travel offerings and provide inspiration for other companies to follow in its forward-thinking footsteps.

For the past four years, the catalog’s cover has been printed on Monadnock Paper Mills Astrolite PC 100® Velvet. Monadnock, based in Bennington New Hampshire, is the oldest continuously operating paper mill in the United States and has built sustainability into the DNA of its business. The company’s focus on premium quality, performance, and sustainability guides the portfolio development of award-winning and sustainably-advantaged fine printing, packaging, and technical papers.  All Monadnock printing and packaging papers are FSC® (Forest Stewardship Council®) certified (FSC C018866), and manufactured carbon neutral.

Like Monadnock, Nat Hab has its own internal Green Team continuously working to raise the bar on eco-friendly operations, including materials sourcing and recycling. Choosing 100% post-consumer waste recycled papers results in meaningful and quantifiable impact reductions. 

Many travelers’ Nat Hab experience begins at the mailbox with a beautifully designed catalog that showcases the environmental sustainability commitments at the core of our mission.

Nick Grossman, director of marketing production at Nat Hab

“Our new catalog cover delivers that ‘wow’ factor with Monadnock’s Astrolite PC 100 Velvet paper,” Grossman explained. Astrolite PC 100 Velvet is part of the company’s line of fine printing papers, coated on both sides and made with 100% post-consumer waste recycled fiber. It is the only premium-coated 100% recycled sheet made in the U.S.

“We love being on this journey with Nat Hab,” said Julie Brannen, Director of Sustainability Solutions, Monadnock. “Supporting its admirable mission makes our job very rewarding. It’s an adventure to work collaboratively with Nat Hab and support their mission to provide equally rewarding adventures for their clients.”

The post Natural Habitat Adventures Has Sustainable Travel ‘Covered’ appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

Dominique Browning jokes that after the interview for this episode, she might end up having PTSD. After more than 30 years writing and editing at some of the top magazines in the world, Browning has blocked a lot of it out.

And after listening today, you’ll understand why.

At Esquire, where she worked early in her career, Browning says she cried nearly every day. There were men yelling and people quitting. Apartment keys being dropped off with mistresses. A flash, even, of a loaded gun in a desk drawer.

At House & Garden, where she ended her magazine career in 2007 after 12 years as the editor-in-chief, the chaos was less Mad Men and more Devil Wears Prada. It was glitzy Manhattan lunches mixed with fierce competition and coworkers who complained that her wardrobe wasn’t “designer” enough. The day she took the job, she says she felt like she had walked into Grimm’s Fairy Tales. (Her friends had warned her that it was going to be a snake pit.)

When the magazine unexpectedly folded on a Monday, she and her staff were told they had until Friday to clear out their offices. “Without warning,” she says, “our world collapsed.”

In this episode, Browning talks with Lory Hough, editor of Harvard Ed. magazine, about those chaotic years, which, she admits, could also be fun. (Spoiler: The fun had nothing to do with the loaded gun.) You’ll also hear why in her editor’s columns she often wrote about her kids, why she still thinks of herself as an editor, and why a certain bit of advice from a golfer friend helped her during the stressful parts of her life when she worried too much about what others were thinking: Keep your eye on the ball and just swing through.

Read the full episode transcript here.

Print Is Dead (Long Live Print!) is a podcast about magazines and the people who made (and make) them. Magazines that combined thought-provoking attitudes and values with a distinctive look and feel, and cast a long and powerful shadow on American culture and public discourse. Hear stories and learn lessons from legendary designers, editors, writers, publishers, photographers, illustrators, photo editors, and more—stories and lessons that capture a magical history of innovation and inspiration, and that point the way forward. We’ll go deep into the lives and careers of this astonishingly talented group of creators, and tease out what these giants—past and present—have to teach the next generation of creators.

If you’re in the magazine business—if you’re in any business focused on content creation—this podcast is for you.

This episode is made possible by PIDLLP sponsors Commercial Type, Mountain Gazette, and Freeport Press.

The team behind Print is Dead (Long Live Print!) also produces The Full Bleed, a podcast about the future of magazines and the magazines of the future.

The post When House is Not a Home | Dominique Browning appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

There are many reasons for you to hate Fabien Baron (especially if you’re the jealous type). Here are seven of them:

• He’s French, which means, among other things, his accent is way sexier than yours.
• He’s spent more than his fair share of time in the company of supermodels like Naomi Campbell, Christy Turlington, and Kate Moss.
• He gets all of his Calvin Klein undies for free.
• Ditto any swag from his other clients: Dior, Louis Vuitton, Burberry, or Armani.
• When he tired of just designing magazines, magazines went and made him their editor-in-chief.
• He was intimately involved in the making of Madonna’s notorious book, Sex. How intimately? We were afraid to ask.
• Also? Vanity Fair called him “the most sought-after creative director in the world.”

With our pity party concluded, we admit “hate” was probably the wrong word, because after spending time talking to him, it’s easy to see why Baron has been able to live the kind of life many magazine creatives dream of—and why he’s been so incredibly successful.

His enthusiasm is contagious. It’s actually his superpower. And it’s a lesson for all of us. When you get next-level excited, as Baron does when he can see the possibilities in a project, his passion infects everybody in the room. 

And then, when you learn that Baron believes he’s doing what he was put on this earth to do, and claims that he would do it all for free. You’ve kind of got to believe him.

I never, ever worried about money. I never took a job because of the money. Because I think integrity is very important. I think, like believing that you have a path and that you’re going to follow that path and you’re going to stay on that path and that you’re going to stick to that. And that’s what I’m trying to do.

Fabien Baron

Read the full episode transcript here.

Print Is Dead (Long Live Print!) is a podcast about magazines and the people who made (and make) them. Magazines that combined thought-provoking attitudes and values with a distinctive look and feel, and cast a long and powerful shadow on American culture and public discourse. Hear stories and learn lessons from legendary designers, editors, writers, publishers, photographers, illustrators, photo editors, and more—stories and lessons that capture a magical history of innovation and inspiration, and that point the way forward. We’ll go deep into the lives and careers of this astonishingly talented group of creators, and tease out what these giants—past and present—have to teach the next generation of creators.

If you’re in the magazine business—if you’re in any business focused on content creation—this podcast is for you.

This episode is made possible by PIDLLP sponsors Commercial Type, Mountain Gazette, and Freeport Press.

The team behind Print is Dead (Long Live Print!) also produces The Full Bleed, a podcast about the future of magazines and the magazines of the future.

The post Fabien Baron | Vive la Créativité! appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

Letterform Archive is offering a reprinting of W.A. Dwiggins: A Life in Design by Bruce Kennett with a Kickstarter campaign and a special $60 pricetag until September 10.

This is a book to spend a year with.
—Steven Heller

Letterform Archive kickstarted the first printing of Bruce Kennett’s comprehensive biography of Dwiggins. It was funded in two days and quickly sold out. This beautiful book is not just a biography; the pages are typeset in a custom digital version of Dwiggins’ Electra typeface, with 1200-plus images and Dwiggins’ essays set in his typefaces.

“The name W. A. Dwiggins usually brings to mind typefaces for Linotype and books for Knopf, but his amazing career has myriad additional facets. Over a period of fifteen years, I researched, wrote, photographed, and designed this book to honor his creative forces, exploring material from the Boston Public Library, Letterform Archive, my own private collection, and other archival sources,” says Kennett, the book’s author. “The book serves as inspiration for anyone in the visual arts — whether it be graphic design, illustration, textile design, printmaking, calligraphy, type design, or puppetry.”

The book will remain available on Kickstarter and at museum shops after this date. However, the early campaign premiums are worth a look.

Running through his life is a joie de vivre and lightness of spirit than can serve as inspiration for all of us.
—Bruce Kennett, author

Learn more about W.A. Dwiggins: A Life in Design and become a backer on the book’s Kickstarter page.

The post Call Yourself a Graphic Designer? You Have W.A. Dwiggins to Thank appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

Few resources shine as brightly as Designing Brand Identity in the ever-evolving landscape of design. Now in its 6th edition, Wheeler brought on Rob Meyerson to coauthor and steward the book. With practical advice, case studies, and step-by-step strategies, this book is a beacon for anyone seeking to navigate the intricacies of branding with confidence and creativity.

Wheeler’s vision and expertise have left an indelible mark on the field, empowering countless professionals and students to transform how brands are conceived and executed. Her dedication to demystifying the branding process is a testament to her passion for design education, and her legacy lives on through this book. For more on that legacy, PRINT honored her memory this year. You can also listen to Debbie Millman’s 2011 interview with Wheeler on Design Matters.

The introduction of the 6th edition offers an insightful look back at the last two decades of branding. We’ve excerpted the intro Q&A with Wheeler and Meyerson below, with permission.

What are your biggest takeaways from twenty years of writing Designing Brand Identity?

Alina Wheeler (AW): Since the first edition, we’ve put supercomputers in our pockets, fallen in and out of love with social media, weathered a pandemic, and witnessed massive change in the climate and global politics. At the same time, branding has changed immeasurably. Now, major rebrands are mainstream news. People use (and misuse) phrases like “on brand” in daily conversation. Brand expression is omnipresent across all digital platforms, content marketing is a cost of entry, and armies of algorithms track our every move. We continue to see a dramatic increase in best practices across organizations big and small, B2C and B2B, driven by new generations of agile leaders. And companies are rebranding more often—identities that would have once lasted 20 years are now revised after just five. Writing Designing Brand Identity has reminded me how much courage it takes to effect change. And that no one does it alone. Through this book, I’ve aspired to capture the strategic intelligence and boundless creativity of our colleagues around the world. We are infinitely grateful to all who have shared their time, stories, wisdom, and insights as they build the brands of the future.

Why a sixth edition? Why now?

AW: When I began writing Designing Brand Identity in the early 2000s, there was no comparable book. It was the resource I needed in the heat of a new engagement—a book that would provide a shared vocabulary and process for management and the marketing team, supply a list of the major brand name changes in the last century, and remind me of the irrefutable fundamentals of branding. It was a way to keep me up to speed on the most current thinking on user experience, approaches to decision making, and global best practices. Since then, hundreds of smart, new branding books have come out. But Designing Brand Identity remains the most comprehensive resource available. Over 20 years, five editions, and eleven languages, it’s been a living document in which I’ve continuously collected and updated best practices, processes, and trends. The sixth edition is the strongest one yet. As long as branding exists, Designing Brand Identity will always have new insights to share.

How (and why) did you select a coauthor?

AW: After 20 years, it’s time for a new generation of brand thinkers to take the lead. Two things have allowed me to be effective writing this book: being “in the game” — working with clients, attending conferences, networking with peers—and committing to creating the best book I could. So, when I began the daunting search for a co-author, those were my top priorities. Who’s in the game? Who will truly commit to helping me create the best possible version of Designing Brand Identity? Rob Meyerson has occupied every seat at the branding table, from start-ups to mature, multinational, public companies. He’s led strategy teams at world-renowned brand consultancies and boutique agencies. He has lived and worked in Silicon Valley, Shanghai, and Southeast Asia; he understands the importance of cultural insights. As Global Head of Brand Architecture and Naming at HP, he hired and managed top-tier branding firms and was “in the room” helping to create a new, multi-billion-dollar brand—Hewlett Packard Enterprise. And as an independent consultant, he’s demonstrated his commitment to understanding, improving, and educating the global branding community through his writing and podcast.

What’s changed in the sixth edition?

Rob Meyerson (RM): Our main goal was to ensure the book is not only up to date, but forward thinking in terms of how brands are built and maintained, trends impacting the world of brands and branding, and examples of amazing work. We’ve added detail and rigor to pages about brand strategy, brand architecture, and naming, as well as ideas that have more recently gained relevance in branding, such as AI, social justice, and evidence-based marketing. And we continued our efforts to feature a diverse cross-section of work in terms of geography, agency size, and types of client companies. Just as important is what hasn’t changed. We’ve preserved the three-part structure (Basics, Process, Best Practices), built on the comprehensiveness of previous editions, and factored in insights from dozens of industry experts. Designing Brand Identity is still organized as a reference book, with bite-sized pieces of useful information—a book for busy people undertaking the monumental challenge of building or overhauling a brand.

What did you learn working on this book?

RM: Creating a new edition of Designing Brand Identity is a massive undertaking: Over 150 two-page spreads, each with its own set of challenges, examples to source, and experts to consult. It means capturing, distilling, and organizing the collective wisdom of an industry, then sharing it back in an easily digestible format. Doing so forced me to gain a deeper understanding of some topics and learn about others for the first time. Alina’s assertion that “no one does it alone” is more than a statement of fact—it’s a mindset. It’s been an honor to work with Alina on this iconic book. Doing so gave me a front-row seat to the impact she’s had on the lives and careers of so many people in our industry. Time and again, senior executives and acclaimed designers would jump at the opportunity to contribute to the new edition—not only because they relied on this book early in their careers (many of them did) but because of how giving Alina is with her time, attention, and expertise. I’m certainly not new to collaborating, networking, or community building, but working with Alina on this book has been a master class.

What’s next for Designing Brand Identity?

I reached out to Rob, curious to hear his perspective on leading the way forward as he takes the helm.

What do you believe have been the most significant changes in the branding landscape in the last 20 years, and how have these changes influenced the updates in the sixth edition?

RM: In some ways, it feels like everything has changed. When the first edition was published, none of us had heard of an iPhone or Twitter, and most of us had never heard the name Barack Obama. And changes like these—in technology, culture, and elsewhere—have had immeasurable changes in how we build and manage brands. Meanwhile, branding professionals and academics continue to advance the thinking on how marketing and branding work. Every edition delves into relevant topics, updates best practices, and provides fresh examples and case studies. For example, in this edition, we added information about AI, evidence-based marketing, and how brands responded to the murder of George Floyd.

We added a two-page spread on social justice, which shows examples of how brands have stood up for social justice, provides dos and don’ts, and highlights some of the brands that changed their names or logos in the wake of George Floyd’s (2020) murder. We also added over 50 new case studies in this edition—the first time since the first edition that the book has had a full refresh on case studies—and aimed to highlight some environmentally friendly and socially responsible brands. Brands featured in the case studies include nonprofits, fully electric cars, reusable packaging, and even a sustainable alternative to cemeteries.

What are some of the most compelling case studies or examples included in the sixth edition?

RM: Of the 800+ images, diagrams, and examples of brand touchpoints in this edition, over 75% of which are new, it’s tough to choose favorites. What I like most is the diversity of work highlighted in this edition—and I mean “diversity” in just about every sense of that word. Big, famous brands, like Pepsi and Nike, and smaller, local brands, like a convenience store in Costa Rica. Work from every continent. From well-known agencies like Pentagram and COLLINS to boutique agencies. B2C and B2B. For-profit and nonprofit. We wanted to show a range, and I think we succeeded.

Why do you believe Alina Wheeler’s impact continues to resonate with today’s brand strategists and designers?

RM: Alina’s known globally as the author of Designing Brand Identity, and of course, that book has had—and will continue to have—a huge impact on branding professionals everywhere. (As an example, Alex Center of CENTER says it’s “the book that first taught me how to build brands.”) But, Alina made a significant impact even before she wrote the book as a female agency founder, a founding member of AIGA Philadelphia, and an advisor and mentor to countless agencies and young professionals around the world. And those who had the chance to meet her personally will remember her generosity, humility, wisdom, and humor. She loved helping people in their careers, she was passionate about design and branding, and she was optimistic about the future. In many ways, Designing Brand Identity is just an extension of those traits.

Anyone working on future editions of this book should constantly be asking themselves, “What would Alina do?” We’ll do our best to make some of her ideas a reality, and I think she’d love to know that we’re continuing to push the envelope. She wouldn’t have had it any other way.
—Rob Meyerson

Thanks to Alina Wheeler for her monumental contributions to the branding world, which continue to inspire and guide us. And here’s to the next chapter of Designing Brand Identity — I’m looking forward to what comes!

What do you want to see from Designing Brand Identity in the future? Sign up at dbibook.com/news to send feedback and stay in the loop on future plans.

The post The Enduring Legacy of Alina Wheeler’s ‘Designing Brand Identity’ appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

In 1999, we looked ahead to the new millennium. Concerns about a Y2K bug were kicking around. The Matrix was winning at the box office, and The X-Files and The Sopranos were at the height of their popularity. Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator were becoming industry standards, and creativity was thriving across all disciplines.

1999 was also the second year of the PRINT New Visual Artists showcase. Launched the prior year as a way for the PRINT editorial team to seek out and identify emerging visual artists from around the world, the inaugural class included an impressive list of designers, including Michael Braley. Five years earlier, Braley had graduated from Iowa State and was working at Cahan & Associates, looking ahead to his burgeoning career.

I knew I wanted to be in San Francisco. I loved the city and its creative pulse. After a few years, in which I was lucky to work with Stone Yamashita and then Elixir Design, I landed at Cahan & Associates where I worked on projects ranging from brand identity to packaging to annual reports.

Michael Braley, 2024

Trimble Newsletter | Stone Yamashita; Seeing Jazz Book Cover | Elixir Design; 1997 Annual Report Design for COR Therapeutics | Cahan & Associates

I always believed it was important to be recognized especially as a young designer. I remember going to interviews with my big black portfolio, which had a side pocket with the magazines in which I had been featured and Post-it notes marking the pages with my work. Bill (Cahan) also knew the value of award recognition. (I think he’s won thousands in his career). So, when I asked him to endorse me for the PRINT New Visual Artist showcase, he said an enthusiastic yes!

Michael Braley, 2024

Sappi Ideas that Matter Tenth Anniversary Promotion

After twelve years in San Francisco and being in demand, Braley worked for a time at VSA Partners before relocating to Kentucky. His business, Braley Design, has been flourishing for thirty-one years.

Braley, known for his clear, simple, and impactful work, has a mantra: communicate immediately and aim for seamless integration between form and content. His work has been recognized internationally and is in the permanent collections of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Chicago Athenaeum Museum of Architecture and Design, the Denver Art Museum, the Museum fur Kunst und Gewerbe (Art and Design) in Hamburg, Finland’s Lahti Poster Museum, and The Museum of the Marie Curie-Skłodowska University, in Lublin, Poland.

Poster Designs by Michael Braley

I still believe that it’s important to put yourself out there to your colleagues, peers and potential clients. When you’re young, it’s all about carving a path for yourself and finding your place in the creative landscape. For me, participating in competitions is about being exposed to new techniques and ideas so that my work remains relevant and being inspired so that I can always find the joy in design.

Michael Braley, 2024

Brand Identity and Catalog Design for United States International Poster Biennial 2023

Do you want to share your skill, talent, and joy? Do you believe your work has longevity? Inspire others to follow your path by entering the 2024 PRINT New Visual Artists showcase!

Featured Image – Book Design for The Woven Perspective, The Work of Photographer Jock MacDonald

The post A Look Back with Michael Braley, NVA Class of 1999 appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

I have been on Torosian’s mailing list for over two decades, and an admirer of the books he has created on photographers he deeply admires. Samples of the books he’s made of their work, as well as his own photographs, supplemented by the essays he’s written and reprinted by others, make this volume both readable and collectable.

Although I’ve written in the past about specific Lumiere Press books, I’ve not, until recently, talked to Torosian about his work. The recent creation of the Lumiere Press Archives at the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, University of Toronto, was a good excuse to learn more about this printer/photographer.

How do you define the title Printer Savant?
This was a title bestowed upon me the evening of my very first book launch. I was explaining to a guest how the books were made—that I had cast the type from molten lead, printed the sheets on a hand-cranked, hand-fed press, and bound the books entirely by hand. She was astonished at how complex and labor-intensive it all was and asked me where I had learned how to do all this stuff, assuming perhaps I’d gone to an industrial trade school. When I told her that I was self-taught, she said, “You must be a printer savant.”

I loved it. The implication that I had some kind of extraordinary ethereal native talent was delightful, but I also liked the clever turn of phrase. I thought it was so novel it ultimately found its way into the title of the newest book, which surveys my entire career.

And the term served as a contrapuntal device in the book’s narrative to understand the path of my education in the book arts—that my “savant-like” aptitude was actually the result of an array of factors—an obsessive devotion to learning; the aesthetic tools I brought with me from my background in the art of photography; and the experience of meeting and working with some of the most important artists of the 20th century.

I still like the idea of being called a “savant,” even though the reality is less dreamy and more the product of thousands of hours of intense work.

How did you become a printer, and how did you decide what to print?
I had my first one-man show as a photographer in 1974. I was deeply immersed in the artform. In those years exhibitions were few and far between, so it was primarily through books that I developed a mature understanding of the medium and found inspiration.

And I had two key revelations—because the reproductions in a book could retain the fidelity of the original photographic print and the structure of the book enabled the photographer to make a sophisticated statement through the selection and sequencing of images, the book in itself was a work of art. From that, I arrived at the conviction that the book was truly the medium of photography. The question: How could I pursue the book arts?

In 1976 I was working on a portfolio of prints that required some typesetting and printing, and I was introduced to a designer who offered to help me out. When I arrived at his home, he led me into the kitchen. The room was dominated by a Vandercook cylinder proofing press. He was hand-setting type and printing books. I thought you needed a factory to make books, and this guy was doing it in his kitchen.

This was my introduction to letterpress. But just as importantly, it was also my introduction to the ethos of the “fine press,” a philosophical perspective founded on the idea of the book not as the product of an editorial board and an array of industrial tradesmen, but as the expression of one person’s conceptualization, design and craftsmanship.

I was absolutely captivated by the craft. For the next 10 years I committed myself to an intense, personal education in the book arts. I studied design and typography and the history of the book. I acquired and learned how to operate an Intertype machine and a printing press and, for three years, I took night school classes in traditional book binding.

One of the great advantages of devoting a decade to this personal education is that it gave me the time to seriously consider what shape a publishing program should take. I was guided by my mantra that I wanted “to be part of the dialogue of my medium.” The heart of my mission became the examination of the artform through the biographies and philosophies of photographers who had inspired me.

There is such a perfection in what you do. How did this ingrain itself in your being?
I’m tempted to credit heredity for that. My father was a meticulous craftsman. He built the house I grew up in—by hand. And my mother was cut from the same cloth—very fastidious and well-organized.

In my book I quote Mies van der Rohe’s famous line, “God is in the details,” and I make the point that the allusion to the divine elevates the aspiration. The way we work is not just a matter of striving for perfection, it is an ethical imperative.

I take the position that every minute of every hour should be one of concentration and commitment. Whether I’m writing, or photographing, or gluing up a spine, it is all of a piece: I make no differentiation in the meaning of a task. It all has to be done, and done well.

It’s a way of living and learning and being.

Books obviously are not disappearing, but how do you viably preserve the species in the work you do?
I started out in the fine press world because the craft appealed to me. There is nothing more rewarding than to make something with your own two hands.

But in addition to the sheer pleasure of making books the way I do in my workshop, I soon discovered that I’d come upon a form of publishing art books that had a lot of merits.

When you look at the tidal wave of trade books that are produced every year, you realize it is so overwhelming that many books don’t have a chance of finding an audience or enduring. As Calvin Trillin once quipped, “The average shelf life of a book is somewhere between milk and yogurt.” A trade title is easily pushed out by the next thing coming down the assembly line.

In contrast, in the world of publishing I have my own unique bandwidth. Lumiere Press is the only fine press in the world devoted to the art of photography. The books stand apart. Private collectors and institutions have responded to the “object quality” and the art historical scholarship, and for 40 years I’ve sold out every edition. And because the books are not an ephemeral product, but are preserved and treasured and studied, the impact of each book is curiously much greater than books published in bigger numbers.

There are so many ways to make a good book. What is the line below which you will not descend as a bookmaker?
I can only answer this by inverting the equation and saying that there is no limit to what I would do in the pursuit of perfection. I’ve learned that perfection as an absolute is unattainable, but I think striving for it does possess a certain nobility.

The Lumiere Press Archives at the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, University of Toronto, are packed with the evidence of this striving—trial pages, prototype bindings, maquettes—a profusion of artifacts attesting to the compulsion to find a way of expressing in paper and ink the intellectual and creative substance of the project.

My assistants have sometimes wondered why we would devote weeks, sometimes months, to one small detail of the project, and my answer is always the same—everything I do is my legacy.

The plaque on the cover of the new book might look like something you’d knock off in one day’s work, but in fact it was the result of weeks of experimentation with an array of papers and ink formulations. The printing and trimming were very painstaking processes. As I say in the book, “Fanaticism and toil are de rigueur in this trade.”

Personally, there are the books I preserve and look through once (but will not sully), and books that I avidly read, and treat like any consumable. What category, or where in between, is your space?
Judging from the response over the years, I can see that there is a strata of collectors who consider Lumiere Press books in the same classification as “works on paper”—like woodcuts or lithographs—that is, works of art. And they are handled and savored in that spirit.

And there is also ample evidence that the books are carefully read. Multiple requests have come in from scholars working on theses and dissertations seeking permission to cite material. Additionally, the full text of a number of Lumiere Press titles has been reprinted in books issued by Yale University Press, the National Gallery of Canada, Steidl, and the University of Toronto Press—ample confirmation of their art historical value.

Critics routinely remark on how people visiting a museum walk through galleries of masterpieces and give each work no more than a few seconds consideration. I’ve seen people go through my books, and as they realize that it is not the typical kind of book they are accustomed to, they begin to savor the presence of the materials, the architectonic forms of the lead type, the sculptural aura of the letterpress printing.

We’ll just say the books are their own species.

What does your and Lumiere Press’ future have in store?
For the past 40 years, the day after I finished a book, I started work on the next book.

I’ve now almost finished work in the bindery on the latest book. However, rather than plunging into the next thing, I want to pause for a minute to consider the future.

With the passing of the years I’ve become more aware of the physical demands of the craft. The tools and machinery and lead are pretty hefty. There are days when it feels like nothing in the shop weighs less than an anvil.

In spite of that, I’d like to think I’ve got it in me to work until I’m 80, which means I’ve got 10 years to go. However, because the books have become progressively more ambitious, it now take two to three years to execute a project. What this all means is that in all probability I have three books in me.

So the issue occupying my mind is what are the three books—potentially the “last three books”—that are the most meaningful to me? What do I have to say? What do I want to discover?

I want to keep going because I want to keep learning, and there is a phenomenon that replicates itself with every project. After months and months of labor, the workshop is full of components—specimen pages, galleys, press sheets, trial bindings—and one day, this mass of stuff congeals into a recognizable book for the first time, the physical manifestation of an intellectual concept. It is gratifying. It is exhilarating. It is addictive. It pushes me forward.

The post The Daily Heller: Shedding Some Light on Lumiere Press appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

Only 1% of global healthcare research is invested in female-specific conditions beyond cancer.

Across 770 diseases, on average, women are diagnosed four years later than men.

Less than half of medical schools have women’s health curricula.

These are just four of the 100 staggering statistics compiled within Evvy’s newly released coffee table book that sheds light on the glaring sexism embedded in American healthcare. 100 Effed Facts About the Gender Health Gap, created by Evvy as an offshoot of their Equal Research Day 2024 campaign, is a “Very Incomplete List of Ways the Female Body Has Been Left Behind by Modern Medicine.”

Evvy is a care platform for women and people with vaginas that provides at-home vaginal microbiome testing and clinical care. Its mission is to close the gender health gap by discovering and leveraging overlooked female biomarkers, starting with the vaginal microbiome. As part of this mission, Evvy launched the annual Equal Research Day on June 10 each year to promote inclusive research and raise awareness for the gender health gap.

For this year’s Equal Research Day, they expanded their campaign by creating and distributing the limited edition 100 Effed Facts About the Gender Health Gap coffee table book. 100% of the proceeds from the book are being donated to Women’s Health Access Matters (WHAM) to help accelerate women’s research and funding. You can purchase the book at equalresearchday.com— though it is currently sold out, it will be restocked.

The 250-page book is striking and intentionally demands attention. It features a bright red printed softcover with a cut and foil-stamped jacket. Its significant size (8.5″ x 10.5″) takes up space and makes the interior imagery and text big, bold, and undeniable. The large circular motif on the cover features on every page of the book, symbolizing the gender health gap visually and replicating the sense of inaccessibility as it obscures imagery and text.

Evvy’s CMO, Laine Bruzek, led on the book’s creation. She answered a few of my questions below about the process, the importance of Evvy’s work, and the severity of the gender health gap.

The female body shouldn’t be a medical mystery.

At what point and why did your team decide to release a book to address the gender health gap? How is this book an extension of the work you’re already doing, and what does it provide that your other offerings don’t?

We founded Evvy because the female body shouldn’t be a medical mystery, but to this day, it is. On average, women are diagnosed four years later than men across 770+ diseases, in part because women weren’t required to be in US clinical research until June 10, 1993.

That’s why Evvy created a holiday called Equal Research Day on June 10— think Equal Pay Day but for the gender health gap. Every year, we invest in a large-scale campaign to raise money for Women’s Health Access Matters and bring awareness to the disparities in scientific and medical research. This book was published in honor of Equal Research Day 2024. 

Year-round, Evvy focuses on pioneering precision clinical care for vaginal health powered by our state-of-the-art vaginal microbiome test. But Equal Research Day is when we step back and spark conversations about the gaps in women’s health more broadly. 

What was the book development and design process like? It’s a distinct and visually compelling design, with the large circular gap motif throughout. How did that concept come about?

First, we decided to make a book because we need to be having more conversations about the gender health gap, and I believe in the power of physical artifacts to start those conversations. 

Additionally, and unfortunately, the facts about the gender health gap speak for themselves. They are powerful, angering, and motivating, so a book is merely the best way to gather those facts in one place. 

We decided to make a book because we need to be having more conversations about the gender health gap, and I believe in the power of physical artifacts to start those conversations.

Finally, we wanted to make something that could live at the center of where people are gathering— in your living room, in an office lounge, in the waiting room at the doctor’s office. All it takes is someone to open the book to get them hooked and want to talk about it. Each page is downright shocking when the facts are things like, “Women are 32% more likely to die if their surgeon is a man” or “Less than half of medical schools have women’s health curricula.”

When it comes to the design of the book, we wanted to infuse it with the sense of frustration and loss that women experience after delays in diagnoses, failed treatments, mystery symptoms with no answers, or medical gaslighting. 

We realized that putting a huge graphic hole—a literal gap—on every page achieves that. It obscures key parts of photos, covers certain letters and words, and generally leaves the reader with a sense of incompleteness and loss, plus the motivation to uncover what’s behind it to fix it. That’s precisely how we hope readers will feel about the gender health gap when they’re done reading, too.

How did your team go about sourcing and curating the facts in the book?

There is no shortage of “effed” facts about women’s health— the hardest part was narrowing our book down to just 100. It was important to us to highlight gaps in healthcare across all categories—not just what typically falls under “women’s health”—so we initially had hundreds of facts across cancer, heart health, hormonal health, autoimmune disease, vaginal health, menstrual health, and beyond. 

That makes this book one of the most comprehensive compilations of gender health gap facts ever assembled. While our team did the sourcing and curation, every fact featured in our coffee table book exists because a researcher persevered to bring it to life— not an easy task when funding for women’s health is so scarce.

What is Evvy doing on the clinical research side to close the gender health gap?

Evvy is closing the gender health gap by discovering and leveraging overlooked female biomarkers, starting with the vaginal microbiome. 

Vaginal discomfort is a leading reason women seek healthcare advice (for conditions like bacterial vaginosis, yeast infections, recurrent UTIs, and more). Additionally, research has uncovered groundbreaking links between the vaginal microbiome and critical female health outcomes like infertility, STIs, preterm birth, gynecologic cancers, and more. Yet, the vaginal microbiome remains under-researched, and current standards for vaginal healthcare are underpinned by simplistic methods like microscopy and brute-force antibiotics.  

In 2021, we launched the Evvy Vaginal Health Test, the world’s first CLIA-certified, at-home vaginal microbiome test that tests for 700+ bacteria and fungi with a single swab. Evvy’s larger vaginal healthcare platform is the first to combine state-of-the-art vaginal microbiome and STI testing, precision clinical care, and coaching to give women and people with vaginas the care they deserve. Through this platform, Evvy is building real-world datasets that can transform our understanding of complex female health conditions. 

Our platform has not only provided tens of thousands of women and people with vaginas with better vaginal healthcare, but it has also built the world’s largest comprehensive dataset on the vaginal microbiome — enabling a new age of precision medicine.

Have you seen the gender health gap shrink in any way since Evvy’s inception? Is there any hope we can cling to? And inversely, what are the most critical areas where work still needs to be done?

One key way we can close the gender health gap is through innovation. Over the last few years, I have been greatly encouraged by the proliferation of brilliant founders (many of them female) tackling women’s health challenges across whole-body health, from cancer to heart health to menopause to vaginal health and beyond. 

Some of the brightest minds are working on women’s health right now as researchers, doctors, policymakers, founders, and advocates— and that should be a source of great hope. 

That said, we still have a long way to go when it comes to funding women’s health research. Only 1% of global healthcare research and innovation is invested in female-specific conditions beyond cancer— that’s just 1% for all of menopause, endometriosis, PCOS, vaginal health, and much, much more. Additionally, half as much funding goes to diseases that mainly affect women compared to those that mainly affect men. The incredible people building the future of women’s health can’t do so without the proper resources, and the funding gaps in women’s health are staggering and alarming. 

The post “100 Effed Facts About the Gender Health Gap” Lays Bare the Sexism in US Healthcare appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

In 2015, Ryan Fitzgibbon was immersed in his young design publishing career and committed to the global fight for LGBTQ rights. Three short years prior, he founded Hello Mr., a quarterly magazine focused on the interests and stories of gay men. Ryan aimed to offer a fresh perspective by combining high-quality journalism, personal stories, and contemporary culture. Featuring in-depth articles, interviews, and photo essays, often highlighting themes of identity, relationships, and community, Fitzgibbon’s Hello Mr. was a thoughtful and inclusive publication celebrating the diversity and experiences of modern gay men.

I’ve helped restructure organizations, redesign brands and build on existing strategies, but I had never built one from the ground up and stayed around long enough to manage it. Launching Hello Mr. on my own was the greatest challenge of my career.

Ryan Fitzgibbon, 2015

Challenges often make us stronger, and they continued to do just that for Fitzgibbon. He self-published Hello Mr. from Brooklyn, New York, before moving to Tulsa, Oklahoma, in January 2020. Shortly after arriving, he was diagnosed with HIV at the height of the pandemic.

“Make it mean something” continued to resonate for Ryan. His diagnosis inspired his creation of In Our Blood, a platform that supports individuals with detection and exercise while replenishing their inner activism. As he committed to Tulsa, he continued to work to protect LGBTQ+ rights and expand HIV/AIDS care and prevention in Oklahoma. His meaningful work also supports the Black Wall Street Times in producing multiple print publications and opening their newsroom and storefront in Greenwood.

Being selected as a New Visual Artist in 2015 buoyed my confidence as an artist and indie publisher. The recognition renewed a dedication to my practice by highlighting the impact that could be achieved with support from a platform as revered as PRINT.

Ryan Fitzgibbon, 2024

Though Hello Mr.‘s last publication was in 2018, this past spring, A Great Gay Book: Stories of Growth, Belonging & Other Queer Possibilities hit the bookshelves to celebrate the collection of essays, short fiction, poetry, interviews, profiles, art, and photography from the magazine’s archives, as well as new material from today’s most prominent LGBTQ+ creatives. For Fitzgibbon, making it mean something means something every day.

You can make it mean something, too. Enter your work in PRINT New Visual Artists 2024 to impact the future of your career and inspire design creativity around the world.

Featured Image: Alternative Cover Design for PRINT New Visual Artists Magazine, April 2015 by Shane Griffin, NVA Alum Class of 2015

The post New Visual Artist Ryan Fitzgibbon ‘Makes It Mean Something’ appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

The DuMOL Dirt, a quarterly publication from Russian River Valley winemakers DuMOL takes you deep into the world of winemaking—from the vineyard, through the earth, into the bottle, and onto your table. DuMOL believes everything, from the soil underfoot to the oak in the barrels, shapes the wine you love. And the more you know, the more you’ll appreciate not just DuMOL but all wines and the dedicated people and land that cultivates them.

I wanted to learn more about the process behind The DuMOL Dirt, created by writer and chief curiosity officer Simone Silverstein and designer/illustrator Craig Frazier. Frazier was kind enough to indulge me on their behalf. Our conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

The DuMOL Dirt is a refreshing departure from traditional wine marketing. What inspired you to take an educational approach, and how has the audience responded?

I’ve been working with DuMOL for eight years since I redesigned their label. DuMOL is considered a “luxury” brand and is only available to allocation members, high-end restaurants, and a select few wine shops. The luxury market tends to be a bit braggy and promotes scarcity of product (and information). The winemakers at DuMOL are farmers and scientists striving to make excellent wines. Their practices are both exact and authentic—they make what they like—not what they think the market will like. I brought the original concept of The Dirt well-formed. Our idea was to create a series of print tabloids that micro-dose fine winemaking’s myriad complexities and processes. We wanted to create a repository of information for the everyday wine drinker that would have staying power on desks and in libraries. While a finished bottle of wine is discarded and no longer in view, The Dirt can hang around like a good book or magazine.

Consumers love to know the backstory of the methods and discipline of art and finely made things—especially the artisan commitments. This was a hole in the industry we could fill—the opposite of exclusivity. We, simply and humbly, wanted to bring readers into our world and share the joy. The response is overwhelmingly positive. People are learning and appreciating at the same time. DuMOL is talking to its customers in ways they never have. 

The Dirt demystifies winemaking for readers. How do you ensure accessibility for a broad audience of wine enthusiasts?

It’s all in the writing and design. Simone writes with an unpretentious and witty voice and goes just deep enough not to lose a reader. We also have a couple of tiers of information, from a conversational main narrative to technical data on the diagram and even a “Did you know?” panel. You can consume as much as you are thirsty for. The readability of the typography and the hand-drawn illustrations make it accessible and interesting. As Milton Glaser says, our job is to inform and entertain—those are not mutually exclusive.

Also, the name. Dirt stands for everything the publication is about—the nitty gritty, the basics, the facts. It’s a fun double-entendre that also points to farming. You can’t get any more basic than dirt. “Getting down in the dirt” is an idiom that speaks to seeking understanding. It’s also the opposite of the traditional boasting about critic’s scores and wine notes on your palate.

The decision to have one independent voice in Simone Silverstein is quite innovative. How has this approach impacted engagement and the community around The Dirt?

I agree; this novel approach has made a tremendous difference. We announce to the reader that these are not committee/consensus-generated pieces. We also give Simone complete ownership of her words. She is not a DuMOL employee but essentially a guest writer. The title we gave her, Chief Curiosity Officer, further promotes that she and The Dirt are here to expand people’s knowledge of a complex and fascinating practice. The Dirt features an illustration of Simone—not unlike what you might see in The Wall Street Journal or New York Times. We also published her email to field questions like “Ask Heloise” (originated in 1959)—the opposite of automated chatbots and AI-generated response mechanisms. The reader responses have proved our hunch right.

The tone is the heart of the project, so we operate from that premise. Simone and her conversational writing style deserve credit for this. She has a test that asks the question, “Who gives a f@##?” If she doesn’t find the messaging inviting, friendly, or helpful, she won’t include it. She takes great pains to ensure that the reader isn’t being marketed to.

How do you balance visual storytelling with written content, and what unique challenges or joys does this collaboration bring to the project?

A big part of our successful collaboration is respecting each other’s roles. Once we pick a topic, Simone and I interview the winemaker and hear the stories together—a pivotal moment for each Dirt. A certain energy happens for us as we acquire new knowledge—and we become excited to share it. As for our process, we quickly arrive at an angle for the piece that directs the main visuals and steers the narrative. I’ll give Simone a rough design so she can work her text into the layout very early. I finish up the illustrations while she continues to refine the copy. It’s a sort of ping-pong. We never show it to the client until it’s 95% there. The editorial input we need is generally factual and technical. It’s important to keep the client from their tendency to be transactional and sell wine. We believe that creating interest and goodwill sells wine—not boasting about quality.

Why did you focus on print as the primary medium for The Dirt? How does the tactile experience enhance the reader’s engagement with the content?

This was yet another hole in the industry we saw. While everyone has gone digital, most of the remaining print communications are shlocky direct mail. Print was the most fitting way to create a timeless library of information. We still feature The Dirt on the company website, but it doesn’t compare to the experience of holding it in your hands. Making print communications is a natural extension of the craft of making wine. The Dirt is beautiful and well-suited to being left on the coffee table or desk. The tabloid size allows them to carry a lot of information without binding multiple pages (each issue is four pages).

The Dirt’s design approach is part infographic, part art. What role does illustration play in shaping the publication’s aesthetic?

My intention is to make information beautiful to look at. It’s a fine line but one I’m comfortable defining. The secret to illustrations and diagrams that are understandable, is making them attractive and fun. The tone must always be accessible and compelling, not stiff or technical. I draw according to the nature of the information we want to convey. Usually, simpler is better. There are also subtle touches, such as the icons and rough sketches of tools that appear ghosted behind the cover masthead. I also draw the cartoons that we have featured in caption contests in several of the issues.

How do you select the themes for each issue, and what can readers expect in future editions of this series?

Given the name of the publication, it was only natural to make the premiere issue about soil. It set the stage for the depth (pardon the pun) that we wanted to take readers into farming and vineyards. All the topics are fundamental to all winemaking and offer the opportunity to describe DuMOL’s distinct approach. All the topics could easily lend themselves to 2.0 versions in the future—they are that complex. We want to do one on the life of a grape and move on to talking about the stories of key people—the winemakers and the work required in the vineyards. It’s endless— it’s an evergreen subject.  

Could you share a specific topic that was particularly challenging to translate into both visually engaging and informative content? How did you approach this challenge?

Issue #4, The Bottle issue, was particularly challenging because—unlike harvest, barrels, or soil—there is less of a process to describe. We had to examine the bottle and look at every detail as part of the puzzle supporting the kind of wines that DuMOL makes. I created a cross-section of a bottle and identified every nuance I could find interesting and relevant. The thickness of the glass has an eco message, and the corks do as well, not to mention a taste and preservation component. The label says so much about the brand. The hierarchy of the label’s typography is very important from both a design and regulatory perspective. The challenge of the story involves integrating the bottling decisions that affect the final wine from year to year. Our job is to discover and express the tiny choices and distinctions that DuMOL makes. The message is that every detail matters and there is a price to pay for cutting corners—which DuMol doesn’t. We want the reader to come away arriving at their own conclusions about the integrity of their wine because they gained a new understanding of DuMOL’s practice.

The post DuMOL Digs Up the Dirt on the Art of Winemaking appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

I sort of envy anyone who subscribes to McSweeney’s who thinks they’re subscribing to a magazine, and winds up getting something like this in mail.

Beloved publisher darling McSweeney’s has never been one to shy away from pushing the boundaries of the printed form, and they surely aren’t going to start anytime soon. The creative minds behind the nonprofit, including founder Dave Eggers, are keen to continue innovating their offerings even further. Their most recent foray into genre-defying publications, for example, takes the shape of a magazine issue in a tin lunchbox.

To celebrate the 25th anniversary (its 74th issue) of McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern, McSweeney’s developed, designed, and produced a retro tin lunchbox with a “cover” illustrated by Art Spiegelman (author of the graphic novel Maus). The tin is filled with “author baseball cards,” among other thoughtfully designed trinkets.

The author baseball cards feature a lineup of literary giants, including Sheila Heti, Hanif Abdurraqib, George Saunders, Sarah Vowell, Michael Chabon, Eileen Myles, and more. The pencils feature original pieces by Lydia Davis, Catherine Lacey, and David Horvitz printed on them, with meaning designed to change as you use the pencil. Additional art rounds out the 25th-anniversary issue, in which Art Spiegelman teases out images from random watercolor inkblots.

Suffice it to say, this Quarterly Concern issue reimagines what a magazine can be on the most fundamental level. I asked McSweeney’s art director, Sunra Thompson, a few questions to learn more about the ideation process that resulted in this lunchbox concept. His illuminating responses are below!

How did your team land on a lunchbox as the main structure for this issue?

It started with the author baseball cards that come with the issue. Before we knew what the issue would be, we had this idea to make author baseball cards, with stats on the back and trivia from the authors, packed in real, tearaway baseball card packaging.

We knew we wanted to include them with an issue of McSweeney’s, but it wasn’t obvious how we’d package them with a book in a way that would make sense. We had a meeting at a certain point, and I mentioned tin as a material, mostly because I’d been trying for years to make a book cover out of tin. An editor said something about how tin always reminded them of special-edition DVDs from the ‘90s— apparently, tin was briefly trendy in DVD packaging for a while. That observation led directly to Dave Eggers saying, almost immediately, “Let’s put the issue in a lunchbox.” At least, that’s how I remember it.

Soon after that, we asked Art Spiegelman if he would create the art for the lunchbox, and astonishingly, he agreed.

What was the rest of the ideation phase like for this concept? How did you decide on each of the items inside the lunchbox?

Once we had the lunchbox idea, everything else flowed from there. We packaged the book of stories like an old Norton Anthology of Literature, which anyone who’s taken a senior high-school English class in the US will probably recognize.

Printing stories on pencils seemed like a gimme. Art Spiegelman graciously put together a portfolio of pareidolia art he’s been experimenting with—where he teases out images from random watercolor shapes—and we printed them in a booklet. And then the baseball cards—perhaps the centerpiece of the issue and the whole reason we decided to make a lunchbox in the first place—suddenly made sense bundled with a book of stories.

What was the most exciting aspect of this project for you? Is there an element of the finished product that you’re proudest of? 

The art Spiegelman created for the lunchbox is astounding— the lunchbox really does look like nothing else. Working with a material we’ve never used before is also exciting, especially when it complements the issue’s theme. I’d wanted to work with tin for a while and got to do it in a way that didn’t feel too gratuitous. The baseball card packaging is also a highlight, particularly the silver packaging.

What sort of experience do you hope “readers” of this issue have when they engage with it?

I sort of envy anyone who subscribes to McSweeney’s who thinks they’re subscribing to a magazine and winds up getting something like this in the mail. I like to imagine someone being a little confused when this lunchbox lands on their doorstep, with the name of a literary journal they subscribed to a few months ago printed on the lid. That feeling of mild confusion, followed by surprise, awe, and joy, is nice to imagine.

McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern will be available to purchase for $35 starting June 27.

The post McSweeney’s Celebrates 25 Years with an Issue in the Form of a Lunchbox appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

Annual Reports

First Place

SPH This Year 2023
Susan Prentiss – Boston University Creative Services
USA

Boston University School of Public Health (BUSPH) is preparing for its 50th anniversary in 2026 by releasing a series of annual report-type publications over the next four years. The theme of the 2023 issue is “Our People,” focusing on individuals who have significantly contributed to BUSPH’s legacy. The design aims to create a visual narrative that connects with the audience, featuring stories of these key figures. Inspired by the Beatles’ ampersand typographic pattern, the cover design exudes celebration and vibrancy, using copper foil to draw attention and highlight the names of current faculty and staff. The accompanying duster includes portraits of faculty and staff, setting the tone for this special edition.

Additional credits: Illustrator, Diego Kuffer; Maureen Moran, Rhonda Mello, Rob Davison, Charles Alfier, Veronica Beaudoin, Pam Cooley, Josh Comas-Race. Printer, Kirkwood

Second Place

The Smithsonian Annual Report
Jason Mannix – Polygraph
USA

The Smithsonian Institution, comprising 21 museums and galleries, the National Zoological Park, and nine research centers, collaborated with Polygraph for its 2022 annual report. This report highlights 38 individuals driving the organization forward, creating a cohesive narrative that spans various disciplines. Structured sections group people under common titles, using photographic and illustrative portraiture to add energy and diversity. Short sheets within the editorial grid introduce a playful texture and rhythm, resulting in a richly woven portrait that showcases the Smithsonian’s cultural and scientific innovation.

Additional credits: Lindsay Mannix, Gavin Wade, Laura Hambleton, Elizabeth McNeely, and the entire team at the Smithsonian Office of Advancement. Photography, Stephen Voss, Schaun Champion, Mike Morgan, Paul Chinnery

Third Place

The future is Nuclear, Bruce Power Annual Review and Energy Report
Erin Grandmaison – Bruce Power
USA

The 2023 Bruce Power Annual Review and Energy Report showcases the achievements and partnerships of the past year, emphasizing the pathway to a clean energy future. The Creative Strategy team incorporated a graphical line throughout the design to symbolize various paths, such as journeys, electrical circuits, and future directions. The design features bold text and colors paired with delicate elements like thin lines and icons, creating a dynamic visual contrast. A vibrant electric yellow, an enhanced version of their safety yellow, was used to evoke a futuristic and energetic feel. Documentary-style photography highlights people and the natural environment, with intentional yellow and blue accents to signify safety, light, and innovation. Additionally, the data visualizations were redesigned to improve comprehension and complement the report’s narrative.

Additional credits: Designer, Jessica Hillis; Communications/Writing, Tim McKay, Kate Bagshaw, Megan Adams; Web Development, Jen Johannesen. Photography, Francis Lodaza and Riley Snelling. Printer, Flash Reproductions

Student Honorees – Annual Reports

First Place – Victims First Annual Report by Aurora Schaefer, University of North Texas, USA

Books—Covers, Jackets

First Place

Opinions
Robin Bilardello – Harper
USA

The book jacket design for Opinions by Roxane Gay, created by Robin Bilardello, follows the impactful designs of Gay’s previous works, Bad Feminist and Hunger. Opinions is a collection of Gay’s best nonfiction pieces from the past decade, covering a wide range of topics including politics, feminism, culture wars, civil rights, and more. The anthology includes a new introduction where Gay reflects on the past ten years in America. Known for her role as a New York Times opinion contributor and “Work Friend” columnist, Gay addresses both societal issues and personal dilemmas with her wise and insightful voice. This thought-provoking collection is set to engage her existing fans and attract new readers.

Additional credits: Hand-drawn Type and Author Illustration, Robin Bilardello. Printer, Phoenix

Second Place

Evil Eye
Milan Bozic – Harper
USA

In her new novel, Etaf Rum explores the expectations placed on Palestinian-American women and the impact of unresolved family history. After protagonist Yara faces workplace trouble, her mother attributes it to a family curse, prompting Yara to reflect on her strict upbringing in Brooklyn. Rum’s follow-up to A Woman Is No Man delves into intergenerational trauma and the struggle to break free from cycles of abuse.

Additional credits: Illustration and typography, Lauren Tamaki. Printer, Phoenix

Third Place

Feminist Designer: On the Personal and the Political in Design
Alison Place – University of Arkansas
USA

Feminist Designer, edited by Alison Place, delves into the intersection of design and feminist theory, moving beyond the traditional focus on women’s representation in the field. The book emphasizes collaborative processes that challenge power structures and center feminist perspectives. Designed as a feminist project, it features typefaces created by women, non-binary, or trans designers, bold typography on the cover reminiscent of protest chants, and purple hues symbolizing suffragette history and contemporary activism. Every contributor’s name is prominently displayed on the cover, reflecting the feminist principle of giving credit where it’s due.

Student Honorees – Books—Covers & Jackets

First Place – Zubaan by Ariana Gupta, School of Visual Arts, USA
Second Place – Speaking in Tongues by Yoon Seo Kim, School of Visual Arts, USA
Third Place – Artist Book by Jiawen Zhang, School of Visual Arts, USA

Books—Entire Package

First Place

Milton Glaser, POP
Mirko Ilic – Mirko Ilic Corp.
USA

Milton Glaser, POP contains well over 1100 visuals, covering Milton Glaser’s work from when he was a 12-year-old (1942) to 1975. The book contains many unknown or lesser-known and unpublished works of Milton. This includes some sketches and comps. The challenge was to design the book without distracting from Glaser’s work.

Second Place

Type Something For Me
Joyce Shi – G Axis Press
USA

Type Something For Me documents an interest in typography through three distinct perspectives: type as enigma, type as a way of seeing, and type as reflection. It is the capstone of a year-long exploration into what type can be, and is meant to serve as a starting point for further investigation. With articles such as “The Power of Design(ers)?” “Design as Commodity,” “On Art and Its Form in the Age of Mass Media,” and a number of others, Shi has crafted a volume that offers multiple points of entry for those interested in thinking more deeply about typography and its effects.

Third Place

Alucinação
Felipe Goes – Felipe Goes Designer
Abu Dhabi

This work, curated and edited by Rodrigo Marques from a poem by Samuel Maciel Martins, captures the everyday lives of young, black individuals on the outskirts of Brazil with dense and precise language. Born in Quixeramobim, Martins introduces a persona striving to preserve personal and ancestral memories through a daring artistic consciousness, offering profoundly resonant poems. The book’s black-only print and simple visual design emphasize a rhythm based on mathematical relationships, with stitching as a graphical element. The dust jacket features a poster with simple shapes and vibrant screen-printed colors, contrasting the book’s minimalism. This project, focusing on visual aesthetics and meticulous detail, embodies imaginative fervor and hallucination,

Student Honorees – Books—Entire Package

First Place – Bento Memories by Shiyao Wu, China
Second Place – Dos Palmares by Maíra dos Palmares Santa, Brazil
Third Place – Six-Legged Book by Seo Jin Lee, School of Visual Arts, USA

Brochures & Catalogs

First Place

Naked Trails
Kyle Poff – Leo Burnett Chicago
USA

Granola is often seen as a commodity but Bear Naked aims to elevate its brand from functional to emotional through a campaign designed by Leo Burnett Chicago. Targeting hikers and outdoor enthusiasts, the campaign encourages thinking “Bear Naked” over “granola,” emphasizing the brand’s real ingredients and great taste. As attitudes towards nudity, mental health, and self-expression shift, the niche community of nude hikers has grown. However, despite being legal in National Parks, nude hiking faces challenges due to inconsistent enforcement. Bear Naked’s “Naked Trails,” powered by Gaia GPS, provides a safe, community-supported trail system for nude hikers. Launched on Naked Hiking Day 2023, the campaign partnered with Outside Inc. to produce custom content, video, and social engagement, promoting safe and confident exploration of nature. Additionally, they created a hiker’s belt to hold granola, ensuring hikers are always prepared.

Second Place

MCA NOW
Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago Design Studio
USA

With the international re-opening of museums, the Museum of Contemporary Art produced MCA NOW to amplify museum programming and exhibitions. Building awareness of the MCA to a broad audience, including families, art lovers, and tourists, this new series of collateral is designed as part of a brand refresh to be welcoming and encourage repeat visitation. This first issue, distributed in-person and mailed, transforms from a matte, bi-fold booklet into a 20 x20 inch glossy poster that lists the events and exhibitions of the season. The Creative Studio at the MCA centered full-color, inspirational imagery of both art and the community within the asset, using hits of neon pink from the updated brand palette to highlight museum information and event summaries.

Additional credits: Designer, Brian Hedrick; Director of Creative, Suraiya Nathani Hossain; Production Designer, Katie Williams; Creative Producer, Drew Colglazier; Director of Content Strategy, Kelsey Campbell-Dollaghan; Senior Editor, Tyler Laminack; Chief Communications and Content Officer, Laura Herrera

Third Place

I.a.Eyeworks Booklet
Becca Lofchie – Becca Lofchie Studio
USA

With more than 40 years of groundbreaking work in the realm of optical design, retail/wholesale development, and a frequently slippery, idiosyncratic brand identity, the parameters outlining this print project for l.a.Eyeworks asked for something gigantic in scope and condensed in presentation. The publication’s designer was tasked with serving multiple goals: to encapsulate l.a.Eyeworks’ enormous visual and material history into five “pillars” without becoming a dense and confining history/chronology; to create a document with multiple points of entry and enticing reveals from front to back (and back to front) for anyone unfamiliar with the brand; to make a training manual of sorts for opticians who sell l.a.Eyeworks glasses worldwide; to create a document alluring enough to find a place front of house in independent optical boutiques; to likewise craft a publication that would stand apart from glossy seasonal look books that crowd the optical field; to illuminate the brand’s affinity for artistic collaboration, passion for expressive color, and devotion to thought-provoking wordplay; and above all, to honor the pioneering eyewear designs and visual culture of l.a.Eyeworks.

Additional credits: Photography, Joshua Schaedel

Student Honorees – Brochures & Catalogs

First Place – FORM by Fiona Tran, Drexel University, USA

Concept Work

First Place

Orb Time Font (OTF)
Raven Mo
USA

This clock is called OTF, or Orb Time Font. Living on a tiny blue orb that is the Earth, time is what we all experience, and fonts are the shapes of our languages. Before Raven Mo started research in script and language representation in design, the designer had always thought that our creative industry works around what seems to be everyone’s norm. Design for English-speaking users is just called design, and Latin typography is mostly just typography. Though humans revolve around what is perceived as default, like clockwork, there is so much more beyond Latin and English. To that end, Orb Time Font gives users the choice to recenter the conversation, to people who are native to the language they speak.

Second Place

Hand Copying Meditation
Miki Kawamura
Germany

Miki Kawamura embarked on a year-long project to craft a unique alphabet influenced by Japanese Buddhist principles, fashioning each letter as if reciting a prayer. Inspired by the Japanese belief in perseverance and repetition fostering transformation, Kawamura sought to create a new visual realm by arranging basic elements into bubble-like structures, symbolizing adaptability and diverse meanings through different combinations. Initially resembling typical text posters, a closer look reveals the alphabet embedded within clusters of bubbles, with notable examples including ‘Fizzy’ and ‘The flow of the river is constant and it is not original water,’ achieved by printing the alphabet and spraying water droplets over them. The phrase ‘The flow of the river is constant and it is not original water’ embodies Buddhist concepts of impermanence and ongoing change, encapsulating Kawamura’s reflections throughout the project within the bubbles.

Third Place

Afar: Cultural Cards
Andy Vera
USA

“Afar” is a customized version of the popular two-player card game, Lost Cities, played by designer Andy Vera and his long-distance boyfriend. The project involves the creation of bespoke card decks that reflect their unique identities and shared journeys, with a website documenting the design process. Inspired by their Indian and Mexican heritage, the decks feature thematic elements symbolizing unity and individuality, including a vibrant color palette inspired by Mexico City, Arabic horses representing Vera’s family history, and jaguars symbolizing strength and transformation in Mexican mythology. The face cards replace the traditional Jack with representations of the Queen, King, and “Joining,” signifying unity, while floral motifs from both cultures adorn the cards, with the lotus flower symbolizing divine perfection and unity in their relationship.

Additional credits: Printer, Make Playing Cards

Design for Social Impact

First Place

Foundry Field
Clinton Carlson – Clinton Carlson Design | University of Notre Dame
USA

Foundry Field in South Bend, Indiana, is poised to become one of the rare publicly accessible baseball fields in the urban core, representing a collaboration among various community stakeholders, including an adult recreational baseball league, neighborhood association, Boys & Girls Club, Civil Rights Heritage Center, public schools, and the city’s parks department. Named after the Foundry Giants, an all-Black baseball team from the 1920s, the field seeks to revive history by honoring underrepresented teams and narratives, including an all-black women’s team from the 1940s, a Potawatomi team from the early 1900s, and the pivotal role of South Bend in baseball’s integration in 1947. Featuring murals by underrepresented artists depicting these histories, Foundry Field aims to ignite conversations about race, representation, and accessibility, enhancing the space alongside a vintage baseball field, hand-operated scoreboard, public pavilion, and historical markers. Intended as a community gathering spot for intergenerational play, the project celebrates the strength, resilience, and innovation of historically underrepresented community members.

Additional credits: Creative Director: Clinton Carlson; Design: Clinton Carlson, Kiaya Jones, Neve Harrison, Kenny Garrett, Taylor Li, Catie Procyk, Jennifer Santana, Thomas “Detour” Evans, and, students from Boys & Girls Club and Riley High School; Producer: Clinton Carlson, Michael Hebbeler; Research: Katie Walden, Greg Bond, and Baseball and America students from the University of Notre Dame, Kevin Buccellato, Clinton Carlson, Michael Hebbeler, Matthew Insley, Sean Kennedy, Nick Mainieri; Copywriting: Clinton Carlson, Michael Hebbeler, Matthew Insley, Sean Kennedy, Nick Mainieri, Carrie Gates Jantzen

Second Place

One Small Step
I/D.W Studio
USA

A recent Pew Research Center poll highlighted widespread frustration among Americans regarding the tone of political discourse, particularly leading up to the 2024 election. In response, StoryCorps and I/D.W launched One Small Step, an initiative promoting unity by facilitating conversations between individuals with diverse political views. The initiative garnered significant media attention, including coverage on major platforms such as 60 Minutes and The Wall St. Journal, reaching millions of viewers and generating over 20 million paid media impressions in 2023. I/D.W’s design strategy prioritizes inclusivity, with a scalable design system tailored to each city to encourage widespread adoption and participation. Expanding into Washington DC, the initiative engaged 16 Congressional members from opposing parties, demonstrating its potential to bridge political divides.

Additional credits: Executive Creative Director, Leigh Okies; Creative Director, Sorenne Gotlieb; Design Director, Enrique Barrios; Executive Producer, Alex Ashton; Integrated Producer, Yesenia Lara; Strategist, Sarah Thorpe; Copywriter, David Begler; Photography, Drew Kelly; Motion DP, Andrew Birchett

Third Place

Curt Bloch and his Onderwater Cabaret
Thilo von Debschitz – Q
Germany

During the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands, Curt Bloch, a German Jew, evaded deportation and death by creating 96 magazines titled “Het Onderwater-Cabaret,” containing nearly 500 German and Dutch poems over three years. These circulated within the Enschede resistance network, reflecting Bloch’s emotions of fear, despair, and hope for freedom. Now, 80 years later, these magazines and poems are showcased on curtbloch.com, providing insight into Bloch’s courageous efforts. The website, developed with Bloch’s daughter Simone and supported by German Rotary Clubs, aims to educate about Nazi injustices in the face of contemporary nationalism and antisemitism. It features keyword lists, timelines, and trilingual content, with volunteers worldwide assisting in translating the poems and providing historical context on editorial pages.

Additional credits: Tim Siegert, Normen Beck, Markus Reweland, Mathias Schaab, Luella Döringer, Janic Bussat, Linda Eisenlohr

Student Honorees – Design for Social Impact

First Place – Elephant in the Room by Eason Yang, USA
Second Place – Phantom Limbs: Design Interventions and Site-specific Storytelling by Veronica Tsai, Art Center College of Design, USA
Third Place – Ace Week by Nicole Tocco, Savannah College of Art and Design, USA

Handlettering & Type Design

First Place

Handy Type
Rozi Zhu and Haocheng Zhang
USA

Handy Type revolutionizes type design by integrating interactive hand-tracking data into its dynamic font creation process. Departing from traditional pre-designed typography, Handy Type enables anyone to craft personalized fonts from anywhere, at any time. With the use of artificial intelligence and machine learning techniques, a customized system was made for capturing hand-motion data, aiming to create a new approach to the type design, making both the design process and use experience more playful and innovative.

Additional credits: Lead Designer / Creative Technologist, Rozi Zhu; Designer, Haocheng Zhang

Second Place

Life Less Scary Alphabet
Mitchell Goodrich – Dunn&Co.
USA

Grow Financial, a Federal Credit Union launched the “Life Less Scary” campaign to address the financial anxieties experienced by millennials and Gen-Z. The campaign aimed to recognize and alleviate these fears by personifying financial products as friendly monsters. The design team collaborated with 3D artists to create an alphabet of “monster letters,” which were used in out-of-home placements to represent Grow’s core financial products in a playful yet relatable way. Inflatable versions of the monster letters were featured on billboards, while custom-made monster costumes appeared on various digital and social media platforms, emphasizing the message that financial products can be less intimidating with the help of Grow Financial.

Additional credits: Chief Creative Officer, Troy Dunn; Creative Director, Stephanie Morrison

Third Place

The Typography of a Genius Industry
Gaetano Grizzanti – Univisual
Italy

Fittype is a custom typeface designed for FITT, a prominent European group specializing in garden hose production and advanced fluid technologies. The font utilized for the institutional logo, product names, and communication texts reflects the flexibility associated with the company’s products. Fittype features slender and sinuous letters, with a unicase glyph set that maintains rational proportions and a modular matrix, creating a clean texture reminiscent of an infrastructure network of pipes. It includes 464 glyphs, covering 42 Latin languages, and is available in three versions: desktop, web, and app.

Additional credits: Giancarlo Tosoni

Student Honorees – Handlettering & Type Design

First Place – Up in the Air Gonggi Typography by Jae Young Kim, Pratt Institute, USA
Second Place – Amunet Type by Xinyu Liu, School of Visual Arts, USA
Third Place – Bird Words by Jada Merritt, California Institute of the Arts, USA

Illustration

First Place

Metropolitan Transportation Authority Courtesy Campaign
Ricky Sethiadi – MTA Marketing
USA

The MTA’s “Courtesy Counts” campaign was designed to remind subway, bus, and railroad customers to be considerate of their fellow riders. The campaign seeks to nudge passengers toward better behavior by depicting everyday transit scenes with lively illustrations, witty taglines, and splashes of color. The MTA leveraged nearly 10,000 digital screens, printed posters, and its social media accounts to highlight over 35 unique illustrations covering each mode of transportation, winning positive local media coverage. As more people return to public transportation and re-socialize to life outside their living rooms, “Courtesy Counts” is a fun, friendly reminder that the city works best when we treat each other with respect and kindness.

Additional credits: Designer, John Wong; Illustrator, Sophie Ong; Writer, Chris Sartinsky

Second Place

Joystick Jazz
Mark Borgions – HandMade Monsters
Belgium

This project is the cover art of a 12″ vinyl album containing big band interpretations of classic videogame tunes (Sonic, Donkey Kong, Megaman, Zelda, … ). The album’s music is by the Blueshift Big Band. This release is produced by production company iam8bit in Los Angeles. The cover depicts the main characters of the included games in a jazzy art-style rendering, balanced with recognizable props from these games and musical instruments — all subscribing to the style of the music. The art is produced straight to digital with a limited color scheme (yellow, red, green, cyan), all 100% flat color and their blending, with minor shadow grain. The artwork included the front and back cover, front and back inner sleeve, and labels for this single record release.

Vinyl Producer, Bailey Moses

Third Place

Simple Mills Illustrations
Ellie Schwarts – Design B&B
USA

Vibrant, energetic, and rich, the Simple Mills illustration style conveys the brand’s nutrient-rich and diverse offerings in the better-for-you food aisles. The illustrations artfully highlight the ingredients used across the Simple Mills portfolio, narrate the farming practices that grow them, and hero the individuals who enjoy them. Balanced with a simple geometry inspired by the Simple Mills logo, the library of artwork adds depth, appetite appeal, and humanity to the brand’s expression.

Additional credits: Ellie Schwartz, Olivia Noll, Sammy Smith, Parker Sheley

Student Honorees – Illustration

First Place – Stilts, Bears & Skeletons by Heike Scharrer, Cambridge School of Art, United Kingdom
Second Place – Neon by Xiaoyun Tian, Cambridge School of Art, United Kingdom
Third Place – Gulf Horizons by Jazmine Garcia, University of North Texas, USA

Invitations & Announcements

First Place

Marwen Invitations
Brian Berk – Leo Burnett Chicago
USA

The Marwen Paintbrush Ball is an annual event supporting Chicago’s youth through art, uniting philanthropists and community leaders. Funds raised sustain Marwen’s youth programs, ensuring accessibility without financial burden. Inspired by Marwen’s Art@Work internship program, the design team merged “art” and “work” in their visual language, imagining interns’ creative expressions with office supplies. This approach underscores art’s transformative power and the potential for creativity in everyday materials.

Additional credits: Alisa Wolfson, Shereen Boury; Printer, The Fox Company

Second Place

Monroe Community College Foundation Gold Star Gala Invitations
Jewel Mastrodonato – Dixon Schwabl + Company
USA

The Monroe Community College Foundation’s annual Gold Star Gala is a fundraising event supporting MCC students through scholarships. Each year, a new theme is adopted to generate excitement and attendance. In 2023, the theme was “Wonka’s Garden,” offering a glimpse into Willy Wonka’s colorful and flavorful garden. The agency tasked with developing the concept created a captivating invitation experience. Using specialty print techniques like holographic foil stamping and seed paper, the invitation resembled candy and promised a magical event. A magnifying card allowed recipients to explore hidden messages, enhancing engagement. The event successfully raised $300,000 for student scholarships.

Additional credits: Mark Stone-Chief Creative Officer, Marshall Statt-Executive Creative Director, Nick Guadagnino Copywriter, Stephanie Miller-Prepress Supervisor, Bob Charboneau-Director of Production, Jen Moritz-Senior Copy Editor, Amanda Maxim-Account Director, Mel Brand- Account Supervisor

Third Place

American Heart Association Gala Invitation Suite
Hana Snell – Caliber Creative
USA

Inspired by this year’s theme of floral elegance, the invitation suite designed for the American Heart Association’s annual Côtes du Coeur gala incorporates blossoming greenery and romantic regency into a garden of printed materials. The delicate hand-drawn blossoms, wine motifs, customized script typography, and opulent gold details set the tone for an enchanting vineyard escape of an evening. The set of invitations welcomes patrons to events of indulgence and philanthropy, all leading to the main gala in support of the fight against heart disease.

Additional credits: Brandon Murphy, Erin Brachman

Logos

First Place

Turks Head
CF Napa Brand Design
USA

Pennsylvania’s Main Line Wine Company is a unique establishment featuring a wine lounge, tasting room, and community wine education center exclusively serving their flagship brand, Turks Head. The brand name pays homage to the Turks Head Tavern, a significant historical landmark in West Chester. The project aimed to create an upscale, exclusive brand identity that was simple, elegant, and easily recognizable. CF Napa drew inspiration from the clean design of the tasting room and the Turk’s head knot, a symbol of unity. They developed an icon based on the knot, incorporating an interlocking TH monogram, representing the brand’s connection to the community. The icon, embossed with gold foil, stands out on clean white labels, ensuring brand recognition. The label system allows for flexibility across various SKUs, with a color-coding system highlighting different AVAs and supporting the brand’s educational efforts on terroir impact.

Second Place

Benny’s Bike Shop
Sam Allan – Onfire.Design
New Zealand

Benny Devcich, a legendary figure in the New Zealand bicycling community, established a boutique bicycle shop focusing on professional bike fitting, high-end service, and rare components. Onfire was tasked with creating the brand for this unique shop. Inspired by Benny’s larger-than-life personality and iconic moustache, the design team developed a modern-retro wordmark and moustache icon reminiscent of early 20th-century bicycle emblems. The color palette, featuring British racing green, reflects the historical significance of bicycling culture. The brand has been applied across various materials, including printed collateral, signage, cycling uniforms, and promotional items. Even the wooden ramp leading to the store is hot branded with the logo, honoring cycling history and Benny himself.

Third Place

Kinetic Identity
One Design Company
USA

Kinetic is developing an infrastructure-as-a-service solution aimed at streamlining maintenance for modern digitized vehicles. Their offerings promise seamless speed, accuracy, and precision. The Kinetic logo and monogram reflect their comprehensive, self-contained solution, featuring bespoke letterforms evoking engineering and cutting-edge technology. The visual system, comprising illustration, iconography, animation, photography, and video, honors the innovative solutions designed to ease the transition to the modern era of mobility for various stakeholders in the automotive industry.

Additional credits: David Sieren, Hannah Cormier, Karly Hoffman, Erick Morales, Ryan Paule, Mike Phillips, Danielle Pierre, Kristen Romaniszak; Photography, Connor Weitz

Student Honorees – Logos

First Place – Architectural Digest by Mishen Liu, Art Center College of Design, USA
Second Place – Tiger Ale by Emily Brown, The University of Texas at Arlington, USA

NEXT: Learn more about the winning entries in packaging, data visualization, IX/UX, motion design, environmental/exhibition design, and outdoor/billboards.

The post PRINT Awards 2024 Spotlight: Winners in Type, Illustration, Logos, Book Design, Social Impact & More appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

Advertising

First Place

Georgetown Optician – Adventures in A-Eye
Pum Lefebure – Design Army
USA

“Adventures in A-EYE” is a highly creative social campaign developed with AI technology for Georgetown Optician, a Washington DC-based optician with a long-standing family legacy. The campaign adopts a sci-fi theme, featuring a fictional planet populated by extra-terrestrial eyeball creatures, including the all-seeing “Eyelien” character. Created entirely with AI — from talent to settings — the real eyewear was added in postproduction, enhancing the surreal atmosphere. Launched in Spring 2023, the campaign showcases witty and imaginative content, introducing new characters, fantastical landscapes, and the latest eyewear trends throughout the year.

Second Place

BMW Motorrad – Storied: 100 years of BMW Motorcycling
Justin Page – The Simple Machine
USA

Storied: 100 Years of BMW Motorcycling is a 100-page collectible book celebrating BMW’s century-long legacy in the motorcycle industry. Produced by BMW Motorrad USA in collaboration with The Simple Machine, creators of Iron & Air Magazine, this commemorative piece highlights the personal stories of individuals who have been integral to BMW’s journey and how BMW motorcycles have influenced their lives. The book features stunning photography, historical insights, and compelling narratives, making it more than a collector’s item. It celebrates the deep human connection to motorcycles and serves as an inspiration for motorcycle enthusiasts, marking BMW’s significant milestone.

Additional credits:
Printer, Flash Reproductions

Student Honorees — Advertising

First Place — Literary Mixtape by NaRe Hong, School of Visual Arts
Second Place —Stuf by Oreo by Elyza Nachimson, School of Visual Arts
Third Place — Verizon by Hongjin Li, School of Visual Arts

Branding Campaigns

First Place

SXSW 2024: Global Reframing
Liugi Maldonado – Guerilla Suit
USA

Since 1987, SXSW has been a renowned event celebrating the intersection of interactive, film, and music industries, offering diverse sessions, showcases, screenings, and networking opportunities. Guerilla Suit has partnered with SXSW since 2021 to develop themes and refresh design systems. For 2024, they chose “Global Reframing,” reflecting our interconnected world post-pandemic. The challenge was to capture the spirit of global citizens driving change. Guerilla Suit provided art direction, campaign, social media, content, guidelines, graphic design, merchandise, motion graphics, signage, and wayfinding.

Additional credits:
Designer, Reece Ousey; Account Director, Hannah Young; Managing Partner, Julie Warenoff

Second Place

East Side Pies
Michael Tabie – Guerilla Suit
USA

East Side Pies, an Austin institution renowned for its cracker-crust, culinary-inspired pizzas made with fresh, locally sourced ingredients, sought Guerilla Suit to refresh its iconic brand as ESP opened its first dine-in restaurant. This collaboration, celebrating nearly 20 years of community-focused, quality-driven pizza making, deepened the brand’s identity with a refreshed All Seeing Pie logo and mystical taglines, embracing their status as a beloved hometown original.

Additional credits:
Account Director, Hannah Young; Project Manager, Adri Bosque; Photography, Stephane White

Third Place

Central Market Passport Portugal
Dana Nixon – *TraceElement
USA

Central Market, a high-end Texas grocery chain, revived its Passport Festival in 2023, spotlighting Portugal’s unique cuisine. The creative team captured Portugal’s essence through various promotional materials, including outdoor banners, point-of-purchase posters, department signs, and a radio spot, all inspired by the country’s iconic Azulejos tiles and landmarks. Social media videos, a detailed map, tote bags, and commemorative wine glasses enhanced the experience, transforming the grocery trip into a cultural journey. This immersive campaign invited shoppers to explore Portugal’s culinary heritage, showcasing Central Market’s commitment to celebrating global cuisines.

Additional credits:
Co-CEO & Chief Creative Officer, Jeff Barfoot; Associate Creative Director, Cristina Moore; Account Director, Anna Mertz; Account Manager, Kasey Cooley; Creative Director, Dana Nixon; Designer, Dana Nixon & Stephanie Williams; Illustrator, Stephanie Williams; Production, Dave Basden; Copywriting, Plot Twist Creativity; Animation, Cody Rubino

Branding Collaborations

First Place

2023 Nuit Blanche Taipei – Time to Rise Up
Department of Cultural Affairs, Taipei City Government; Left Brain
Taiwan

Nuit Blanche, originating in Paris, has thrived in Taipei for 7 years, integrating cultural elements like art and design into public spaces. With over 400,000 attendees annually, it’s one of Taipei’s largest cultural festivals. This year, held in Taipei’s Xinyi District, known as Taiwan’s iconic area akin to Times Square, Nuit Blanche focuses on themes of “Democracy” and “Liberty,” reflecting Taiwan’s global stature. It encourages participation from all backgrounds, using art to address contemporary issues and inspire change, under the theme “Time to Rise Up!” in Chinese, which also signifies liberty and inclusiveness of Taipei.

Additional credits:
Visual, Tsan-Yu Yin; Bureau Français de Taipei; Installation Art, Pon Ding; Performing Art, House Peace, Hsingho Co., Ltd. & HoooH; Street Art, Wild Open Arts; Film Curator, Fan Wu; Comedy, Live Comedy Club TAIPEI; Live Music, Arthur Chen; Néle Azevedo, Minimum Monument; Inside Out Project; Raptor Research Group of Taiwan

Second Place

2023 Romantic Route 3 – Falabidbog
Hakka Affairs Council; Hakka Public Communication Foundation; Left Brain
Taiwan

The Romantic Route 3 art festivals began in 2019 to revive Hakka culture, focusing on Taiwan’s second-largest ethnic group, the Hakka people. Working with Hakka Affairs Council, Hakka Public Communication Foundation and Left Brain curated an event outside traditional museum settings, collaborating with locals to showcase art, design, and culinary culture along Provincial Highway 3. They aimed to immerse audiences in Hakka life through sensory experiences, exploring alternate narratives and village spaces. The project introduced people-centric design to the region, addressing cultural issues and presenting a new perspective on Hakka village life. Through culinary experiences, they reinterpreted traditional Hakka cuisine, incorporating new narratives and products to communicate Hakka culture.

Additional credits:
Art project, mt.project; Design project, Harvest Ideation; Culinary Project, Grand Vision Co. Ltd.; Visual, BITO; Volunteer Program, Migratory Creation; Tour Planning, JWI Marketing Co., Ltd.; Digital marketing, MEShPlus

Third Place

Confronting Design
One Design Company
USA

In collaboration with the Graphic Design Club of Chicago, One Design crafted a brand identity for Confronting Design, a series of workshops, panel discussions, forums, and debates focused on pressing issues facing the field of design. The first sold-out event took place in April of 2023 and focused on Artificial Intelligence and its impact on design. The design system is a typographic manifestation of dialogue and the point-counterpoint dynamic of debate. An ever-evolving, dynamic design language, the system is built on a constantly shifting visual power dynamic between the words in the series’ title to communicate the energy – and potential volatility – of the topics at hand.

Additional credits: Kyle Meyer, David Sieren

Branding Identiy & Identity Systems

First Place

The National Museum in Krakow
Emilka Bojańczyk & Zuzanna Charkiewicz – Podpunkt Studio
Poland

The National Museum in Kraków (MNK), Poland’s largest museum, features 21 departments, 12 galleries, 2 libraries, and 12 conservation workshops, holding around 780,000 art objects. Its new identity weaves inspirations and artworks into a cohesive visual language, linking all branches under the MNK brand. The rebranding involved simplifying branch names and creating diverse symbols to reflect the Museum’s variety. The MNK logo, a geometric grid forming the Museum’s abbreviation, anchors the layout system. Dynamic serifs in the logo form decorative patterns, illustrating the rich tapestry of MNK’s collection.

Additional credits:
Concept and design, Podpunkt studio; Creative Director, Emilka Bojańczyk / Podpunkt; Concept, Emilka Bojańczyk, Zuza Charkiewicz / Podpunkt; Design, Emilka Bojańczyk, Zuza Charkiewicz / Podpunkt; llustrations, Zuza Charkiewicz / Podpunkt; Animations, Ewa Najnigier-Galińska, Zuza Charkiewicz / Podpunkt; Typeface, SungBleu Sanrise by Swiss Typefaces

Second Place

Portuguese Government New Visual Identity
Eduardo Aires – Studio Eduardo Aires
Portugal

The Portuguese Government’s visual identity had not been updated for over 12 years. Studio Eduardo Aires worked to introduce a new dynamic identity tailored for the digital age. This redesign integrates all necessary graphic elements for scalability across various media, with a focus on preserving national symbols while ensuring digital adaptability. The new logo, inspired by elements of the national flag, maintains the integrity and dignity of these symbols. Additionally, the project includes comprehensive guidelines for colors, layouts, and a custom font, “Portuguesa,” designed by Dino dos Santos to ensure consistency and security across all government communications.

Additional credits:
Tiago Campeã; Miguel Almeida; Raquel Piteira; Joana Teixeira; Anastasiia Potapenko; Photography, Diana Quintela, Óscar Almeida

Third Place

Guild
COLLINS
USA

Eighty percent of low-income working adults want to attend school but can’t afford it, prompting CEO Rachel Carlson to found Guild, a B Corp helping employers finance employees’ tuition. Guild saw a 220% increase in career mobility, a 210% improvement in employer retention, and 88% of participants were first-generation college students. Despite this, low-income employee participation was initially low due to the time and cost barriers to finding suitable educators. To address this, Guild expanded its services to recruit educators, build education programs, market them to employees, and support participants. Retiring its “tuition finance company” framing and “tuition-free education” story, COLLINS reconceptualized Guild as an “education market maker” with a clear purpose: to increase the socio-economic mobility of America’s low-wage workforce. The team signaled this change with a new mission, brand identity, voice, and creative expression.

Additional credits:
Photography, Eric Van Nyatten

Student Honorees — Branding Identities & Identity Systems

First Place — Museum of the Moving Image by Mina Son, School of Visual Arts
Second Place — POT.ION by Mina Son, School of Visual Arts
Third Place — Found Sound Music Festival by Don Park, School of Visual Arts

Editorial

First Place

The North Face – 50 Years of Parkas Zine
Justin Colt – The Collected Works
USA

The Collected Works collaborated with The North Face on their 50 Years of Parkas campaign, creating a design system highlighted by a limited-edition zine. The goal was to honor the parka not only as a technical marvel for extreme conditions but also as a cultural icon. Through interviews with notable figures like Conrad Anker, Jimmy Chin, Quannah Chasinghorse, and Danie Sierra, the team captured compelling narratives spanning mountaineering adventures, advocacy efforts, and urban culture. Pairing these stories with captivating photography, from mountain peaks to city streets, the zine utilized Futura Passata, Druk, and Windsor typefaces to create a visually engaging experience.

Additional credits:
David Clemente; Jose Fresneda; Christian Townsend; Mina Son; Vincent Drayne; Yasmin Mukino; Emily Connelly; Jesse Eschenroeder; Justin Raymond Park; Photography, Cole Pates, Joe Gall, Leonard Greco, Swanson Studio; Printer, Newspaper Club

Second Place

Hey Barista Magazine
Natalie Chloe and Shields Scheffe – Oatly
USA

Hey Barista, a print magazine supported by Oatly, delves into the vibrant world of the coffee community, exploring the passions and musings of its diverse members. The design of the second issue, inspired by workbooks, features intimate photography, hand-written title treatments, and playful notations in the margins, capturing the vibrancy of the community. Each story reflects the unique perspectives of its subjects, with a diverse range of photographic styles and commissioned global stories captured by local photographers. From exploring gentrification in Mexico City with black-and-white film photography to profiling a barista in a heavy metal band with punchy, gritty visuals, the magazine celebrates the contributors’ diverse lenses. Distributed in over 500 independent cafés globally, Hey Barista aims to connect coffee drinkers with the multifaceted coffee community while strengthening bonds among baristas and roasters worldwide over shared stories and interests.

Additional credits:
Editor-in-Chief, Haley Weiss; Photo Editor, Tess Mayer; Printer, Earth Enterprise

Third Place

HUE, the magazine of FIT, The Fashion Institute of Technology: Fall 2023 Issue
Alexander Isley – Alexander Isley, Inc.
USA

Design of HUE, the alumni publication of FIT, the Fashion Institute of Technology in NYC. This special issue focused on packaging. For the cover, they designed an actual perforated and scored box that could be removed and assembled, incorporating the artwork of textile designer and FIT alum Masha Parfenov. For each issue, the team works with FIT alums to create the photography and illustrations.

Additional credits:
Photography, Joe Carrotta / Morgan Hagney, Walter Chin / What Inspires You?; Printer, GHP Media

Student Honorees — Editorial

First Place — Damaged Goods by Doyeon Kim, School of Visual Arts
Second Place — Experiments in Type Zine by Yerin Lee, School of Visual Arts
Third Place — Gestalt Tattoo by Jung Youn Kim

In-House

First Place

BYMAKBAS Seasonal Stationery
MAKBAS Design Team – MAKBAS Print Studio
Kuwait

MAKBAS Print Studio values print as more than packaging—it’s a process meant to be appreciated. Their “Ramadan Series” celebrates the spiritual season with a collection of greeting cards and envelopes crafted using high-quality papers and techniques. Designs include “Ramadan Sparkle,” featuring hot foil stamping, “Rays of Ramadhan” with blind embossing, and “Ramadhan Scene” showcasing modern architecture and neon screen printing. “Written in the Stars” envelopes depict a night scene with matte gold and silver foil, while “The Hijri Set” highlights the Islamic calendar’s beginning with embossed patterns and gold foil. “COUNT YOUR BLESSINGS” offers a gratitude journal, while “No Pressure” notebooks provide freedom during the calm season. “Over the moon” envelopes represent Eid celebrations with night sky and cityscape motifs. These designs aim to evoke the warmth and joy of the Ramadan season.

Second Place

Lunatix NFT Collection
Ben Morris – Sketch | Unilever
United Kingdom

Unilever’s design team took on the challenge of creating an NFT activation to educate marketers on engaging brand audiences with NFTs. They partnered with a tech company to develop a user-friendly experience for minting NFTs, resulting in unique digital assets. Using generative artwork, they ensured each NFT was one-of-a-kind, fostering a sense of ownership and community. The team introduced Lunatix, a collection of personalized components that, when combined, formed unique avatars. Components were ranked by rarity, encouraging participation and discussion. Embracing a space theme, they humanized avatars as astronauts with playful elements. Though not consumer-facing, Lunatix served as a valuable internal case study, showcasing the potential of blockchain and NFTs in marketing campaigns and upskilling marketing teams.

Additional credits:
Alice Shaw-Beckett

Third Place

Cannes 2023
Luisa Baeta – Axios
USA

Axios, a media/news company, hosts live journalism events, and their in-house branding team designs custom branding for these occasions. For their Cannes events, they aimed to evoke the atmosphere of the French Riviera city while also incorporating elements suitable for beach settings. The design features a custom wordmark inspired by the lettering styles found in Cannes, with playful numerals for 2023. They updated the modular system of geometric shapes from the previous year, incorporating Mediterranean tile designs and abstracted illustrations of Cannes details like beach umbrellas and waves. The color palette was refreshed to reflect a Cote D’Azur vibe, with additional Axios brand colors. The branding uses the Axios brand typeface for consistency, and a template was created for event advertising, allowing for quick updates in case of last-minute changes to topics. Instead of custom illustrations, they utilized duotone photo treatments to enable swift adjustments while maintaining visual appeal.

Additional credits:
Senior Brand Designer, Trina Craven; Brand Designer, Peter Fowler; Associate Brand Designer, Andrew Caress

Photography

First Place

HP OMEN – Choose Fun
Ethan Scott- Designory
USA

Designory was tasked with capturing lifestyle photography for the release of five new OMEN laptops and five new monitors, catering to the intense passion for gaming, especially among Gen Zs. They transformed everyday scenarios into gaming-inspired scenes, featuring surreal elements like meeting a mermaid on a train or riding cabbages as cowgirls. Practical set designs were custom-built to bring these ideas to life, with minimal CGI used for retouching. The result was 32 hero shots captured over a two-day shoot, showcasing the immersive power of the OMEN brand and attracting significant attention to the products on the OMEN homepage.

Additional credits:
Photography, Art Streiber

Student Honoree — Photography

First Place — The Dream by Emily Brown, University of Texas at Arlington

Self-Promotions

First Place

Origins
Jonny Black – The Office of Ordinary Things
D&K Printing
USA

As a family-owned and -operated print shop, D&K Printing wanted to create a piece that showcases the scope, quality, and ambition of our craft, while also educating their customers about sustainable printing basics. D&K gave the design team at The Office of Ordinary Things free rein to design a print promo that exemplifies this in both form and content.

Second Place

2024 ONE LOVE Calendar
John Kudos – KUDOS Design Collaboratory
USA

2024 has started with a visually arresting calendar design, showcasing a complete annual calendar on the reverse side. Printed in four vibrant fluorescent shades, the design not only captures attention but also exudes a delicate vibrancy, resonating with the complex energy of the times. The front side delivers a poignant message amidst ongoing world conflicts, spelling out ‘ONE LOVE’ in bold letterforms intricately crafted with intertwining lines. Purposefully creating moire effects at a distance, the design invites observers to explore the intriguing dance between chaos and delicacy upon closer inspection.

Additional credits:
Photography, Imam Fadillah; Printer, SeaGroup Graphics

Third Place

2023 Sappi Holiday Kit
VSA Partners for Sappi North America
USA

Sappi North America’s 2023 Holiday Kit, designed to express gratitude to customers, highlighted their commitment to sustainability and exceptional design in packaging. Inspired by the phrase “Good things come in ___ packages,” the VSA Partners design team created reusable and recyclable components, including a shipper box, to emphasize sustainability. The kit featured unique finishes, vibrant colors, and relatable language to showcase Sappi’s premium packaging and paper capabilities. The unboxing experience was crafted for memorable delight, featuring a shipper box, a holiday kit box, and three interior boxes, each containing surprises like pillow boxes, note cards, envelopes, and stickers, all secured with bellybands for an interactive experience.

Additional credits:
Associate Partner, Executive Creative Director, YanYan Zhang; Associate Creative Director, Elaine Palutsis; Senior Designer, Elisa Penello; Associate Creative Director, Cody Fenske; Writer, Sosan Bisola; Strategy, Jessica Sochol, Associate Partner; Print Production, Cynthia Felsburg; Director, Print Production, Jennifer Niccum; Director, Production Design, Samantha Stalling; Senior Proofreader, Maria Erdmann; Printer, Jeff Hernandez, Classic Color

NEXT: Explore the category winners in Type Design, Illustration, Design for Social Impact, Annual Reports, Book Design, and Concept Work.

The post PRINT Awards 2024 Spotlight: Winners in Advertising, Branding, Editorial & More appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

It is with sorrow that our future AIGA San Francisco Design events, San Francisco Center for the Book openings, and California College of the Arts gatherings will be without Tom Ingalls. He had a warm smile, infectious laugh, and effervescent spirit that will be greatly missed. Tom left us on the afternoon of April 10, surrounded by his sister and close friends.

Tom’s accomplishments were many. From the moment he arrived in the Golden State during the 1970s, when he received his Master of Fine Art from California Institute of the Arts, he was a star. Tom began his rapid rise in design, first as an in-house designer at Los Angeles County Museum of Art then expanding to a publishing career at the Los Angeles Magazine, Outside Magazine, and Rolling Stone.

When “the Michael’s” (Vanderbyl and Manwaring) recommended that he come north and teach at California College of the Arts, he took on the challenge with great zeal and spent the subsequent 40 years tutoring the next generation of Bay Area designers.

In the 80s, he was a founding member of the San Francisco AIGA Chapter. Many years later, he was honored as an AIGA Fellow for his “contribution to raising the standards of excellence within the design community.” A well-earned recognition of his passion for the printed word.

Not satisfied with running his own design office and teaching, he expanded his interests to include another of his loves—food. Tom always liked to combine his work and play whenever he could, so it was only a matter of time before his love for designing and collecting cookbooks merged with his pursuit of new ways to grill, scramble, roast, or sauté. His seemingly endless joy from finding the best, most unique butcher, baker, and sausage maker in San Francisco could only be surpassed if he could engage you in his journey of discovery.

Tom’s other passion was golf. He didn’t agree with the oft-quoted “a good walk spoiled,” as Tom just loved playing, be it in the Bay Area at Berkeley Country Club (where he also designed the logo) or anywhere he traveled that had lush greens, 18 holes, and a great grill. Again, his love of design and golf were intertwined with Missing Links Press, where he published a range of fine art and design books, many including poetry.

Tom was always warm, generous, and inclusive in every social situation. You were never alone when he was with you. Once, for a July exhibition opening at the San Francisco Center for the Book, which featured my collection of Flags on Paper, Tom volunteered to be the grill master—complete with chef’s tools and aprons—coaxing my son Christopher into being his sous-chef. His generosity made our evening so much more special. Thank you, Tom.

Tom will be missed by all: those who spent just 15 minutes with him, enjoyed a round of golf with him, or shared a lifetime with him. He lives on through everyone he taught or shared a meal with.

I will remember him as a great designer, colleague, and friend.

Photographs courtesy of Petrula Vrontikis

The post Remembering Tom Ingalls (1949-2024) appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

For over 40 years Summit Magazine was a top periodical in its genre. “And its impact was—and continues to be felt—well beyond the climbing world, in large part due to the avant-garde aesthetic that Jean and Helen cultivated with the Summit‘s covers: sometimes chic, sometimes stark, sometimes playful,” says Michael Levy, its new publisher and editor-in-chief.

This spring, a refurbished Summit Journal (issue 320) was reborn as a print-only, biannual, oversized, coffee-table-quality magazine devoted to longform storytelling and large-format photography. The first issue came out in February, and the next is due in August. Previously, Levy spent five years working for two other outdoors magazines, Rock and Ice and Climbing. As has happened with so many other print properties in recent years, the print editions of those titles “went the way of the dodo.”

“As someone who loves print as a medium for longform storytelling, it seemed like the perfect time to take a crack at starting a new print magazine,” Levy says. “Rather than start a brand new magazine, though, I loved the idea of breathing new life into a historic title. Summit, in the climbing world, is as historic as it gets.” He acquired the rights in February 2023, and put out the first new issue in over 27 years.

Here he talks about his climb back up the summit, as well as some of the covers art directed by Kilness and Crenshaw, who have been unheralded in the history of magazine design.

Why have you revived the magazine as a journal in print only? Doesn’t that seem to be counter-intuitive?
On its face, there’s definitely something counterintuitive to being print only. But in another way, it seems exceptionally rational to me? That is, if you can get the material in the magazine online, doesn’t that decrease the perceived value of the print product?

My feeling is that with the glut of content online, there’s something to be said for a highly curated physical product. There’s so much out there on the internet that a lot of stuff, much of it quite good, just gets lost in the noise. But something tactile that you can feel between your fingers and read over a cup of coffee or a beer, that prioritizes longform … it might not reach as many people, but the people it does reach will be that much more invested. Print feels a bit like vinyl to me; what’s old is new again, and the collectability of it, the quality of the physical thing itself, is important. Just like vinyl isn’t going to replace Spotify, print isn’t going to replace digital, but there is a very real audience out there (and I’m in it) that likes analog media, and appreciates reading things that aren’t on a screen.

And building off that, print also felt like a more achievable business model, in a strange way. Though print has a higher bar to entry–the hard costs to get it off the ground were greater, and if I didn’t attract enough subscribers, the whole thing would have been dead on arrival–once cleared, the way forward felt much clearer. You can only fill a magazine with so many articles, after all. 

Of course, I’m a storyteller: What matters most to me is pursuing quality longform journalism. If the articles and image curation inside the magazine are no good, it’s not worth the paper it’s printed on. But given what I think is the extremely high quality content we have managed to fill the magazine with, my feeling is that the exterior should match.

The magazine was founded by two committed climbers. Tell me a little about their goals and feats of magazine publishing.
Jean and Helen were trailblazers, plain and simple. … They were iconoclasts.

Jean and Helen were serious and eminently capable climbers. They lived in Big Bear, CA, in the San Bernardino Mountains, and would head out for adventures in the mountains, and climb at smaller cliffs close to home. Another fun story: Sometimes, so busy were they with their adventuring, they’d forget what issue number they were on, so there are a couple of the old ones that have the same month!

In the hundreds of issues they published, they were actively shaping the culture of the nascent sports of rock climbing and mountaineering in the U.S., pursuits that had a longer history in Europe. In addition to publishing the essays and accounts of cutting-edge ascents by the best climbers of the day—guys like Yvon Chouinard and Royal Robbins, who are household names today—they also published trip reports by families out in the hills or on a fishing trip. They cultivated an egalitarian ethos with their magazine, in content and authorship, publishing an outsized number of women.

What do you think is or are the most significant graphic element(s) of the magazine in its original form and format?
Summit’s old covers are just so distinctive. Particularly in the 1960s, they had a really bold aesthetic, combining bright colors, illustration, playful geometric shapes and different media. Most of the covers are devoid of coverlines, and many have a very minimalist look, e.g., a single pinecone against a blue background, or a silhouetted climber on a cliff against a bright yellow background. My favorite cover is probably September 1967: a minimalist illustration of a lone figure silhouetted on a hill looking up at the night sky. It’s beautiful in its simplicity.

They also used color in paradoxical ways—e.g., a mountaineering scene bathed in neon green or neon pink—and sometimes used ultra close-up shots—e.g., one section of a climbing rope.

One of the cool things in resurrecting the magazine has been to see how far its legacy extended beyond the fairly insular climbing world. I’ve had a whole host of people from the design world reach out to me to express their love and affinity for the old covers and their style.

What have you done to bring it valiantly into the 21st century?
One of the fun parts of reviving an old magazine versus starting one from scratch is that we can lean into the old stuff. The new Summit very much has one eye on the past, while also keeping one eye on the present and future. One example of this: For our debut issue in February, we had two covers. One was an illustration, one was a photo. The illustrated cover, by a great young French artist named Thomas Danthony, was very much an homage to Summit’s covers in the ’60s. The photo cover is very much a splashy, modern climbing photo, full of motion. The stories inside reflect this duality too: We publish both modern reportage, and stories about the history of climbing and climbing culture.

Physically, the magazine has also gotten a big overhaul. The new version is 10″ x 13″, so quite large. It’s printed on heavy stock, uncoated paper. It feels closer to a coffee table book than a newsstand magazine.

In terms of the aesthetic, the inside has what I’d consider a pretty modern look overall: Most of the imagery is displayed in full-page or spread format to really take advantage of the magazine’s size. My art director, Randy Levensaler, has been working on print magazines for decades, and has an incredible eye for effective yet eye-catching layouts

That being said, in terms of the text, we’re very much charting a classic look. I can’t tell you how much Randy stressed over the font choices, text size and spacing—and I think it shows.

We also retitled it as Summit Journal. For six years in the 1990s, after Jean and Helen sold the magazine, it was rebranded as Summit: The Mountain Journal. It closed up shop in 1996, and hasn’t been published since. So going with Summit Journal felt like a way to nod to both former iterations of the mag, yet once again signal that this is a new magazine for a new era.

Do you have to be a climber to be a reader?
Definitely not. I myself am a passionate climber, but at the end of the day my mission is to fill Summit Journal’s pages with quality journalism, photography and art.

The best piece in the first issue is by a brilliant young writer named Astra Lincoln, and it is about the advent of photographic surveying in the Canadian Rockies at the turn of the 20th century, and how this a) led to a boom in mountaineering, and b) is also inextricably related to episodes of ethnic cleansing in the area. It’s masterful.

Some of what we publish is surely a bit lingo heavy, but most of it, I’d say, should be totally accessible to the non-climber.

What is your longterm goal for Summit?
To make a magazine that people want to keep on their shelf to read and flip through again and again over the years.

The post The Daily Heller: A Magazine That Reaches New Heights appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

In postwar West Germany, twen‘s luminescence brightened up the creative space in ways that are difficult to measure. Now, a new book, twen [1959–1971] by Hans-Michael Koetzie, Serge Ricco and Stephane Darricau, produced by Bureau Brut, brings its inspiring legacy once again to the fore. Below are some pages that underscore the intelligence endemic to Fleckhaus’ inventive, editorial typography and cinematic page flow.

The following is a translation of a French essay by Hans-Michael Koetzle excerpted from twen [1959-1971] .

The most influential, and thus the most important, magazine in postwar Germany was called twen. It was published from April 1959 to May 1971 and, although it never sold millions of copies like Stern (Hamburg) and Quick (Munich)—to name but two of the most widely read publications in the early days of the Federal Republic—it did have genuine international reach. It remains the only West German periodical to have attracted a readership not only in Europe but also in America.

With its innovative photography and spectacular layout, twen set a benchmark for editorial design and, it would seem, still inspires young designers, typographers, art directors and creative types of all kinds today. Avenue and Nova would not have seen the light of day without twen.

… Art director Henry Wolf described it as “the last individualistic magazine,” and David Hillman said it was “like no other magazine, past or future.”

In 1964, Milton Glaser staged a major twen exhibition at New York’s School of Visual Arts, and four years later the magazine was awarded a gold medal by the Art Directors Club of New York. As the editorial of the July 1970 issue proudly announced, this was the first time a European magazine had received such an accolade.

A new kid on the block, twen (“teen”) was founded in the late 1950s by two young Cologne publishers, Adolf Theobald and Stephan Wolf. It started out as a “mere” supplement to the student magazine Student im Bild, which Theobald and his team had been publishing since 1957. The aim of this new project was to reach beyond the campus to all types of young people between the ages of 20 and 30. The title was taken from the ready-to-wear clothing brand Wormland, whose … Twen jeans were hugely popular at the time.

The name was original—a first even for English-speaking countries—and a fresh reminder of young West Germans’ interest in the United States, less than 15 years after the end of the Second World War. Yet, despite the fact it covered jazz, literature, art, cinema, fashion and, first and foremost, photography, all topics of interest to this particular readership, twen was neither a magazine for young people nor a photography magazine, a cultural review or a traditional illustrated publication. It transcended all the usual categories and stood out not only as a magazine that was brazen and provocative, with a penchant for the erotic, but also for its generous and masterful layout.

The first issue hit the newsstands in April 1959 and was 104 pages long with a 36.5 × 27 cm format (slightly larger than subsequent issues, which were all 33.5 × 26.5 cm). It was printed in rotogravure by the long-established printer and publisher DuMont (Cologne), which guaranteed not only production quality but also efficient nationwide distribution. According to Stephan Wolf, the first issue of twen sold out very quickly, not least thanks to the coverage it received from the mainstream press.

(Editor’s Note: Fleckhaus invented the position of the “art director,” which did not yet exist in Germany. He acquired the nickname of “Germany’s most expensive pencil.” This is further explored in Design, Revolt, Rainbow (Hartman Books), the first comprehensive monograph on Fleckhaus. It includes texts by Michael Koetzle and Carsten Wolff, both experts on Fleckhaus’ work.)

The post The Daily Heller: How the Best Art Directed Magazine Influenced a Generation appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

Sister Mary, led by founder Leigh Chandler, unveils a new limited-edition printed publication designed exclusively for The Signal, a global current affairs brand based in Washington, D.C. “The Long Game” highlights the global struggle between authoritarian states and democratic life.

Created in partnership with the Human Rights Foundation, in support of the Oslo Freedom Forum, the magazine features interviews with the Bosnian investigative journalist Miranda Patrucić, the American social scientist Francis Fukuyama, and others—on questions from how autocrats are adapting artificial intelligence to how corruption inside dictatorships is spreading beyond them to what the issues of democracy and human rights might end up meaning for your investment strategy.

The Signal’s team, including John Jamesen Gould and Hywel Mills, partnered with Chandler to infuse the inaugural issue with the alternative spirit of underground publishing. Samizdat, a term derived from Russian for “self-publishing,” refers to literature clandestinely written, copied, and circulated during the Soviet era, often critical of the government.

The Signal offers a different approach to current affairs. Its focus is on exploring urgent questions in dialogue with knowledgeable companions around the world—an approach meant to support readers and help them develop their interpretations of global events.

This debut issue not only pays homage to samizdat but reimagines it. The editorial design captures the raw essence of underground publishing while presenting it in a contemporary context.

The layout demands attention, using layering, cropping, aged textures, and bold typography to create a sense of urgency.

Unbleached newsprint was chosen for the paper stock, reminiscent of samizdat’s historical context. The color palette of light beige, black, red, and gold reflects the publication’s rebellious yet premium aesthetic.

The typography is bold and commanding, with headlines in Manuka and complementary text in Untitled, echoing the theme of defiance and urgency.

The publication’s imagery invites readers to explore deeper narratives, aligning with The Signal’s mission to engage with complexity in today’s rapidly changing world.

To be able to assemble our work in a print publication like this isn’t just beautiful; it’s transformative. It’s allowed us to bring a historical connection with the samizdat publications of the Soviet era to life in the language of design—and that’s allowed us to create a reading experience with a completely different emotional resonance and, ultimately I think, a deeper meaning.”

John Jamesen Gould – Editor, The Signal

About The Signal
Current affairs. Strange world. As our world becomes more intricately connected, changes faster, and seems only to get more disorienting, we’re all navigating it—or trying to—in a digital media environment dominated by algorithmic manipulation, polarizing engagement, and partisan spin. It can be hard to focus on what matters—and harder to think. The Signal is for people who want something different. The nonpartisan U.S.-based current affairs organization has diverse global contributors and is committed to liberal democracy.

About Human Rights Foundation
The Human Rights Foundation (HRF) is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that promotes and protects human rights globally, with a focus on closed societies. HRF aims to raise awareness about the nature and vulnerability of freedom worldwide while strengthening the work of grassroots activists in countries ruled by authoritarian regimes. Grounding its work in a deep commitment to individual liberty, HRF achieves its impact through unique policy research and legal advocacy, global events and educational initiatives, innovative and creative campaigns, and direct support to activists on the frontlines of democracy.

The Oslo Freedom Forum (OFF) is a global conference series hosted and produced by HRF. Established in 2009, OFF brings together the world’s most prominent human rights advocates, journalists, artists, technologists, entrepreneurs, and world leaders to share their stories and brainstorm ways to expand freedom globally.

The post Sister Mary Brings the Spirit of Samizdat to The Signal appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

Would you call yourself an artist who designs?
I certainly started out as a designer who makes art, but as I’ve moved between mediums over the years, it really has all coalesced for me and become one big playground where such strict categorizations no longer apply. I would even argue that this applies to writing as well, where perhaps at the onset one may apply the kind of design thinking that being a designer tends to train you for, but then once you’re deep in the writing, it’s quite common to enter a kind of lucid flow state often associated with art-making. Ultimately, my favorite works are the ones that encourage one to utilize their design mind as well as enter that elusive flow state.

What are the primary themes of your work?
Challenging established norms, highlighting injustice and speaking truth to power if I can manage it.

Tell me about the plot of The Solar Grid.
Several centuries after a great flood has subsumed much of the Earth and prompted some of the population to migrate to Mars, much of the Earth is now a dry and desolate landfill thanks to The Solar Grid, a network of satellites that orbits the planet and keep it based in eternal daylight, consigning night to legend. The satellites help power solar factories on Earth that operate ceaselessly to manufacture goods exported to Mars, whereby Mars sends the waste of their consumption back to Earth. Two orphans on Earth, Mehret and Kameen, who rummage through the landfills in search of valuable items they can live off, come upon an artifact that will completely disrupt life as they know it.

Fiction or nonfiction—do you have a preference?
Fiction.

What are your plans for other displays of your art?
Nothing on the horizon right now, but as soon as The Solar Grid is complete, I’d love to organize a touring exhibition with all the original art pages along with some contemporary art pieces inspired by the world of The Solar Grid.

The post The Daily Heller: Ganzeer, an Artist Who Designs (and Vice Versa) appeared first on PRINT Magazine.