MAGCULTURE.COM / BLOG

New AR

A few weeks back I revealed the new logo for the Architectural Review, the first part of the title’s first redesign for twenty years. So how does the re-design itself look?

Just as the new logo refers back to a previous logo, the new design is inspired by the magazine’s past. Although in recent years it has suffered a rather pedestrian design, AR previously held a long and glorious history of strong, forward-thinking design. This new design gives AR a design worthy of its history, combining practicality and modernity.

Despite their interest in radical thinking around their own profession, architects can be very conservative about other areas of design, and Violeta Boxill and Cecilia Lindgren’s design takes account of that trait. Their design is not an overbearing piece of design for design’s sake. It is a well-structured, stripped back design that uses a small set of tools to identify the various departments.

The typography is a classic combination of the modern sans serif T-Star (headlines, some text), and serif Mercury for the body text (and occasional headline). All text is black and white, except for the opinion pieces where bright magenta is added for some bold conclusions (below).

There are three main sections (and several smaller occasional sections). View (above) looks at individual people and events that are influencing architecture. It uses underlined standfirsts instead of traditional headlines (something Boxill and Lindgren have brought with them from their previous roles at design mag Icon) combined with strong column rules. These rules stop only for photographs, otherwise they continue across the bold standfirsts (below) and butt up to the images. This section also uses yellow highlighting for emphasis to running head, standfirsts and text.

Buildings (above) is the main body of the magazine, featuring the case studies. These are strong, simple combinations of image, plan and text, with a new system of bold project numbers applied to the beginning of  each new case study.

And at the back Marginalia (above) provides a broader cultural overview of architecture, using a calmer version of the View design.

Overall, this is not a stunning reinvention of editoiral design, but to expect that is to miss the point. This redesign is a carefully crafted and considered project that puts a once great magazine back where it belongs.