June 23, 2008
Radar re-design
New York-based Radar has been re-designed by Pentagram’s Luke Hayman. The magazine has been through closures and re-launches since it was launched by Maer Roshan in 2003 but seems to have built an audience for it’s mix of fashion, celebrity, politics and culture.
This re-design is very good. Radar describes it’s content as ‘Pop Culture for Smart People’ and the new design is a perfect reflection of that. Hayman takes many of the elements he used at New York and re-invents them to create a younger, poppier environment. The diagrams and charts in these examples, above and below, are typical. The use of straightforward info-graphic techniques to display material about tooth tattoos and the prices of celebrity baby photos is an inspired combination of content and design.
As at New York, the design and editorial teams (led by Kate Elazegui and Roshan respectively) seem to be in perfect harmony and their excitement about making the magazine shines through on every page. As a colleague put it earlier when flicking through the magazine, Hayman has a special ability to mix pure editorial design with more general graphic design to great effect.
Hayman has two more major re-designs launching this month, two magazines that could hardly be more different: O, the Oprah Winfrey magazine, and the monthly news title The Atlantic. News of these another time.
A final image from Radar – I love the way this drop cap sits plum in the centre of the page making more of it’s role as a graphic device to break up a page of text than being a part of that text. It shouldn’t work but does.
11 Comments
Comment on June 23, 2008 by dadif says:
How many times can he roll out another variation of new York magazine? When will people realise NY was so good because of Adam moss.
Those spreads above just aren’t that good. Barely mediocre. Just cos its pentagram doesn’t mean it good. Get your your tongue out their arse.
Comment on June 24, 2008 by B says:
This redesign is very innovative and beautiful…but I have to say this: Another f@#&ing redesign? Seriously? Not trying to be negative, but that is not a good sign…
Comment on June 24, 2008 by LondonLee says:
I often wonder what American magazines would look like if Spy hadn’t existed.
Comment on June 24, 2008 by richard says:
is that cooper black? [shudders]
Comment on June 24, 2008 by pat taylor says:
If you want to see taste/outstanding typography/
clean and bold…look at some of the old SHOW
magazines and EROS and McCall’s and Esquire
and H. Bazaar and Avant Garde and LOOK!!!!!!!!
Comment on July 5, 2008 by Mr. McGinnis says:
Yes, yes… he cleaned up a trashy magazine. He pushed the trash around into neat, organized shapes. It’s still trash though. A horrible, horrible magazine.
And it does look too similar to NY mag.
Comment on July 5, 2008 by tnlz says:
if it looks similar to new york magazine, it’s because luke heyman and kate elazegui designed the heck out of that magazine. if anything, new york is just an example of their great design chops. new york worked because of them.
Comment on July 7, 2008 by richard says:
if you get the new york team in to do your mag, you sort of know your going to get a magazine that holds a similar design aesthetic to New York sold back to you. moreover, you probably WANT the magazine to have a similar look to New York, otherwise you wouldnt employ the people who did New York to do your magazine.
am i making sense, I feel trapped in a hall of mirrors.
Comment on July 7, 2008 by Mr. McGinnis says:
Yes, but why give accolades to people for their design skill when they just do the same design over and over?
In any event… design doesn’t change the fact that the magazine is vapid. The design doesn’t relate to the purpose of the mag (probably because it has no purpose). Design without concept, something that just looks pretty, is a failure.
Comment on July 7, 2008 by jeremy says:
Dead right Richard – surely the team got the job because of their work on New York, and I’d be surprised if the brief didn’t included the phrase ‘New York for a younger generation’. It’s a pop version of the older New York.
Comment on July 7, 2008 by Andy Cowles says:
I bought this copy in NYC without knowing that Luke had designed it. The cover popped, the insides were fun, what’s not to like? To be sure, it’s totally Spy crossed with Jamie Reid, but I think that’s just what they need. My only quibble is the text/image ratio, but given small of the book, I’m not surprised they went for the copy. As for New York magazine, the covers that Luke did whilst there are world class, regardless of what Adam Moss did or didn’t do. But Oprah, now that’s a REAL challenge…
