NYTimes Magazine ‘Fractured Lands’

The fifth Magazine of the Week selected from the past year on the Journal looks at a particularly important issue of The New York Times Magazine, published alongside one of their VR film experiments.

Originally posted 24 August 2016

The latest special edition New York Times Magazine was published a couple of weekends ago. ‘Fractured Lands’ was a remarkable ad-free issue, printed entirely in black and white and devoted to the last ten years in the Middle East. It tells the story of the region from the Iraq invasion through to todays refugee crisis via a single 40,000-word narrative by Scott Anderson and 20 photographs from Magnum’s Paolo Pellegrin.

The weekly magazine has made a speciality of these themed issues, as regular readers here will know. What impresses about this latest example is the way the usual design heroics are toned down to adapt to the simple, direct content. This is design at its functional best, tightened down to guiding the reader through the intense story that unfolds through the voices of six people affected by the events. It is clear, informative and unfussy and entirely suited to the story.

Editor in chief: Jake Silverstein
Design director: Gail Bichler
Art director: Matt Willey
Director of photography: Kathy Ryan
Photo editor: Christine Walsh

nytimes.com/interactive/2016/08/11/magazine/isis-middle-east-arab-spring-fractured-lands.html

‘Fractured Lands’ was made possible by the support of the Pulitzer Center