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Very Elle

Although too busy to post much recently, I have been keeping an eye on other blogs and saw the launch issue of the biannual Very Elle featured on both Mark Porter’s Notebook and CR Blog. It looked great. So when a colleague brought in a copy recently I was intrigued to see it.

Sadly, the real thing is not as exciting as the images shown online. Designers Non Format have applied a typically strong typographic treatment, but it bears little relationship or connection with the photographic content.

CR Blog makes the valid point that as fashion editorial and advertising imagery become increasingly interchangeable, it is through typography that fashion magazines can establish a unique identity. But the two elements need to be sympathetic to each other, and I’m not convinced they are in Very Elle. The layouts look as if the typography and photography have been created separately and combined for printing.

This is curious, as the same designers put together one of my favourite magazines, Varoom. The journal of the Association of Illustrators, Varoom is a great example of how type and image can be combined. And it’s not the easiest subject matter to design – the magazine is about illustration, showcasing lots of examples, a situation where the design needs to be extremely sympathetic to its content. It does so very successfully. See it here.

By contrast, despite some nice touches – the black triangles on the top corners as a navigation device, above, and the foil block logo – ultimately Very Elle is very disappointing.

UPDATE: Mark Porter makes the very good point that the difference between his review and mine was that he was looking with PDFs while I had the printed item. Even looking at my own images, above, the pages look pretty good. But the real magazine isn’t nearly as convincing.