Wallpaper* 20th anniversary issue
Last night Wallpaper* celebrated its 20th anniversary with a huge party at London’s OXO Tower restaurant, overlooking the Thames. London’s design world were out in force, and everyone received a copy of the magazine’s largest (508 pages) issue to date.
The front cover of the issue is a contemporary recreation of their first edition image; inside, they reproduce the original image for comparison but have dropped the 90s logo and headline typography (Meta!). I’ve included my copy of that first issue in the slideshow above.
The issue offers an overview of the 20 years, as you’d expect, but a highlight is the foldout poster ‘Two Decades of Design’ that runs through the 20 years in images. Designed by Spin, every reader receives a unique verison of the poster, the background colours and patterns being randomly paired to make every issue unique.
But when a magazine regularly produces a special subscription cover every issue, you expect something a little more for its 20th, and Wallpaper* doesn’t disappoint. A very limited number of copies come with a special moving cover that pulls apart the image while bringing together the elements of the number ‘20’ on the cover – see the gif below.
Designed for the magazine by Thomas Heatherwick, the mechanism caused huge production challenges, so there are very limited numbers of the cover available. If you’re keen, you can recreate it yourself (there are instructions in the issue and the cover is perforated to help).
And if you’re lucky, you can get one of these super-rare copies from the magCulture shop. Follow us on twitter (@magCulture) for news.
Editor: Tony Chambers
Creative director: Sarah Douglas