Eye on Design #2
The first print edition of Eye on Design made a significant splash with its monochrome design and staring eye logo. The brand new second issue is even more compelling, as illustrated by our latest page 23.
Themed ‘Pysch,’ the new issue has been designed by Shira Inbar, maintaining the magazine’s stance of using a different design director every issue. In contrast to the first issue, it’s a riot of colour, with an almost unphotographable dayglo orange, psychedelic patterns, metallic papers and fold-out sections reflecting the theme. All lovely, a true celebration of magaziney-ness.
This physical presence is enhanced by the strong writing and varied subjects inside. This is a graphic design magazine for the non-designer as well as the designer, not an industry bible but more an exploration (and thus explanation) of what graphic design is/ can be.
Page 23 is the perfect example of the editors’ approach. A look back at the design heyday of Bloomberg Businessweek might seem a little soon — we're travelling back all of five/six years — but writer Cliff Kuang has tracked down all the principal figures and has them reflecting on a time ‘when ugly was amazing,’ as well as noting what they’re up to now.
We hear from creative director Richard Turley, editor Josh Tyrangiel as well as designers, photo editors and others all name checked and quoted. Process and thinking is discussed, the result a refreshingly objective and clearheaded history of a particular project that was the benchmark of editorial creativity for its era; a pre-Trump time where irony could offer a critique of the real world rather than merely a weak copy of it.
Page 23 falls in the middle of the feature, and reproduces a Bloomberg Businessweek page that offers a recipe for crow and a look at living with an Amazon tribe. The design of this particular BBW page is one of the less deconstructed examples that could have been selected, and a world away from the magazine’s famed and over-reproduced front covers, but the scope of the stories and the ironic captioning — the Amazon piece is illustrated in typical BBW style by a stock shot of a rainforest with a voice bubble asking ‘Do you have a wifi password? — is typical of Bloomberg Businessweek in its pomp. Although calm, the construction of the page and the way the two stories interlock hints at recent Turley projects Good Trouble and Civilization.
It sits on a field of dayglo orange shadows that makes the BBW design appear to be arriving from the past through a mist of pages. This is typical of the second issue of Eye on Design — every page is packed with detail.
Director: Perrin Drumm
Editors: Meg Miller, Liz Stinson, Madeleine Morley and Emily Gosling
Art director: Tala Safié
Read our Magazine of the Week review of issue one of Eye on Design.