Candid Assessments: The Point

Old cover is on the left; my quick reinterpretation, laid out in Illutrator CS5
using Trade Gothic is on the right. Copy unceremoniously borrowed from
The Point's website, so pardon any mistakes.
Cover features City (Westward) (2008), by Jason Salavon.

I recall looking over a classmate's shoulder once in an art history lecture to find him "designing" a cover for what turned out to be the first issue of The Point. The publication of record is a seldom-released but well curated, reputable (and widely distributed) small-scale journal that attracts good writers owing to its close connections with the University.

Problem is, that's not the impression most people would get upon seeing said magazine for the first time, and the haphazard design is to blame.

The masthead is plagued by the loose leading between the words "THE" and "POiNt," the iffy kerning between the letters "N" and "t," the unsettling disproportion between the counter and bowl of the letters "P" and "O," respectively, and the unnecessary tension between the word "THE" and "POiNt," which, though of disparate size, are equally heavy. I also take issue with the inconsistent use of upper- and lower-case glyphs, which quite frankly just plain contradicts the professionalism of the content within.

As for the teasers, I really can't say much except that I'd prefer it be set flush left, and that the two tiers of teasers could either be set in separate columns or at least use a more generous paragraph break.

I have no idea what the inside pages look like, but the cover's indecisiveness (is it a journal or a magazine?) inspires doubt. I do, however, like the fact that it's printed on something that resembles a standard trade paperback/ISO A4 instead of ANSI A1, which ought to make it slightly easier to read.

Good content deserves good design. Let's hope that changes soon.

On an unrelated note, here's a doodle I made of a happy lumberjack:

Grey City

Grey City: Issue 5

Cover photo by Shahzad Ahsan

Update: A logistical mixup prevented today's issue from being delivered on time. It will be resolved tomorrow.

The fifth issue of the Chicago Maroon's [sleeper] quarterly magazine came out today (download the .pdf version here). I updated its visual identity so that it would be consistent with that of the rest of the Maroon, which I redesigned earlier this year. Apart from story-specific types, the entire magazine is set in various, systematically determined weights of Gotham, which, incidentally, is the Maroon's new san-serif typeface, supplanting Futura.

Like the rest of the paper, the new iteration of Grey City is cleaner and more functional than its previous incarnations. The generously-spaced, two-column inside pages mark, in my estimation, an especially pleasant departure from the stale, early 20th century magazine design of the New Yorker et al. You can find the title spreads I designed (and an inside page) below:

Photo by Camille Van Horne; font: Helvetica Neue

Designed in Adobe Illustrator CS3; laid out and typeset in Adobe InDesign CS3; font: Univers

Photo by Camille Van Horne; fonts: Grafinc Extra Black (with slightly modified letterform "C") and Rockwell

See what I'm talking about? Info-graphic designed in Adobe Illustrator CS3

Designed in Adobe Illustrator CS3; laid-out and typeset in Adobe InDesign CS3; font: Quicksand

Bonus: Exciting content occasions commensurately exciting layouts, wherefore Voices received a double-truck centerfold spread in today's issue (see below).

Not bad for a night's work.
Drawn in Adobe Photoshop CS3 using a Wacom Cintiq 12WX tablet; laid out and typeset in Adobe InDesign CS3; fonts: Museo (titles) and Quicksand (body)

The Onset of Winter, Dementia

Drawn in Adobe Illustrator CS3 and Photoshop CS3,

with the aid of copious amounts of caffeine

Coursework and habitual neglect, my perennial demons, have yet again successfully conspired against my updating this blog. But fear not, my dear reader, for Your Cartoonist is alive and well (at least for now), and annexing new fiefdoms to his Artistic Empire, no less, because he also cannot say "no" to new and exciting commissions, such as the tentative magazine cover above.

Alas, winter at the University is rarely this delightful
(drawn by hand and in Photoshop CS3)

Unfortunately, your cartoonist's genetic inability to decline assignments is proving to be a real liability; he's now pretty much up to his eyeballs in work and dreadfully depressed as a consequence (fare thee well, nascent social life!). As if more evidence of the deleterious effects of excessive work is wanting, he has given to referring to himself in the third person, and writes blog posts at inordinate hours.