February 15, 2007
Cheap shot?
This pairing of magazine covers had been doing the rounds by email; I’ve received it several times in the last day or so. Are they so similar? Or is the Monocle backlash starting before it even publishes?
Whoever first made the link was quite cunning in their choice of Brand Eins covers. Check the Brand Eins archive to see the scope of their cover designs (well worth a look, they make a great set). The example above is one of the more restrained cover designs. I’ll be impressed if Monocle achieves anything like the variety on a theme they’ve achieved.
6 Comments
Comment on February 15, 2007 by richard says:
i made a link of the two, not intending it to be a criticism. but this layout structure is pretty commonplace, just flicking through a couple of mag books you can see that the Japanese mag Cyzo uses this system of colour bar at the top and clean picture underneath, as do the germans mags (it does seem v popular in germany) Jetzt, Design Report and Feel Good. The dutch magazine Items uses it to as well, as does (tellingly) Brules last magazine Spruce. Though Brand Eins do it best and most consistently, I think could have shown a little more design imagination. but any swipes at this format are just sour grapes… brule does evoke a lot of strong feeling in british magazine circles.
Comment on February 15, 2007 by richard says:
just looked at those brand eins mags… what a set!
Comment on February 15, 2007 by jeremy says:
Good point about Brulé’s previous magazines; even Wallpaper* has a (shallower) white panel across the top.
Comment on February 15, 2007 by richard says:
so im holding a copy of it.. it took a whiel to find in smiths, not sure they really new where to put it, it ended up next to practical fisherman or something, on the bottom shelf…
have to say on first impression im a bit dissapointed. the cover card is rather flimsy and cheap feeling. the rest of the stock is quite nice, though this certainly doesnt feel like a ‘celebration of print’ not a spot-uv in sight booo! (and these are the times when wallpaper* has a BIG trick virtually every issue). design wise its quite minimal and inoffesive. the only real type flourishes are the display quote marks (which are becoming the only way designers inject a bit of type colour onto pages without scaring anyone too much). I’d like some volume somewhere, an enormous headline, a big set of dps photos, something that isnt small and polite to change the pace which tends towards being very one dimesional. body copy/display looks like scala(?), sidebars/captions’2nd level text in helvetica. classic but not really seat-of-your-pants stuff.
that said it feels substantional, well executed and there is a feeling of freshness to it. im looking forward to reading it too.
Comment on February 15, 2007 by richard says:
whe i said scala i meant miller. but again, not sure..
Comment on February 15, 2007 by jeremy says:
I think that lack of volume you highlight, Richard, is the one disappointment on first look. The pages are very repetitive.
