Reappraisals: The Maroon

Quick new re-interpretation of the Maroon (top) and old re-design (bottom)
Note: This hypothetical redesign is the property of Tom Tian, and may not be used without his express permission.

Few things are as sobering and edifying as critiquing one's earlier work. I recall revamping the Chicago Maroon's print edition a few years back and thinking that it was the best thing since sliced bread. At the time, it did represent a pretty radical departure from precedent insofar as it attempted to be much more systematic in its type treatment, hierarchy, and layout. It was also more generous in its use of white space, which helped to punctuate and define the content.

Looking back, my runaway indulgence in systematism undermined its long-term reproducibility. Contrast is a good thing, but overuse leads to complex systems that cannot be easily duplicated. Moreover, excessive differentiation risks fragmenting the design into components that do not easily cohere into one product or idea.

With this in mind, if I were to redesign the Maroon again today I'd start with a modular grid and scale; without changing the size of the page, this means setting down a 5 x 8 grid and 3:4 scale, which roughly correspond to the page itself (11:17). Once determined, these relations would then inform my subsequent choices, such as spacing and type size.

Whereas the old redesign was a cacophony of various weights and types (Gotham and Adobe Caslon), the new one would use fewer weights from one family (Adobe Garamond Pro), set flush left to facilitate reading. The modular grid can be thought of as a chart or table of sorts, whereupon horizontal rules of varying weights can serve to divide/partition the page into portions that reflect the importance of whatever content it houses, thereby shifting the burden of differentiation from the type to spacing and layout.

On the non-design side, I would do away with bylines in favor of an expanded masthead; the "topic tags" would also go, as they belong online and have no place in print. The end product is a more modular, parsimonious system that retains the virtues of the older design while curbing its excesses.