Wired Redesign
by Adrian Hanft, (11 comments)
When Wired arrives in my mailbox, I feel like 46% of you feel about design magazines. It is one of a very few publications that I look forward to reading. I got the February issue today and was treated to a surprise redesign. The new design was lead by Scott Dadich and sports four new families of type designed by Hoefler & Frere-Jones. Here are my observations, but feel free to add your own in the comments…
Cover
We have been critical of Wired covers in the past and I think the tweak of the masthead is an improvement. It removes the clutter from the top inch of the page and maintains the powerful alternating reversed type. The Wired masthead is probably one of the strongest cover elements in magazines today. The odd thing about the cover is a small red dash that starts on the spine and extends about a half inch onto the cover. It is a burst of color on an otherwise monochromatic cover. I can’t say that it does much for me, but it does activate the space in a weird way. Most impressive of all, the bottom right third of the page is empty! That’s right, breathing room. On the cover. Of Wired. Wow.
Content
The guts of this magazine are still stuffed with ads. Aside from the feature stories which I will discuss in a moment, every spread has at least one page of ads. It is oppressive, but unavoidable for a publication that relies entirely on advertising. The thing that stands out is the switch from san serif to serifs for the body copy. This seemed huge to me because Wired’s use of san serifs always gave it a cutting edge feeling. The new fonts are clean and invisible, like body copy is supposed to be. The font families are used really well and the headlines are fun and complement the “invisible” text quite well. It mighat as well be a lesson in typesetting. Still I can’t help feeling like this was a big loss for us sans serif fans. We may have lost this battle, but we are going to win … uh … the next battle.
Feature Stories
If there is a place where the redesign shines it is on these feature stories. On the 104th page of the mag we finally get a break from the ads. Similar to the cover, the spreads are handled with a very limited color scheme. The results are quite beautiful. The text is broken into beautiful blocks of type. The photography is mostly excellent and is used well. My fear is that this first issue of the redesign is going to be an exception and future issues won’t be able to keep the pace. Time will tell.
Overall I give the redesign a thumbs up. You can click on my photos to see a larger detail, but I encourage you to just pay the $12 and get a subscription.
Comments (11)
Vonster said:
I can’t agree with you more. WIRED has been a design inspiration for me since day one. It’s also one of the few magazines I’ll read from cover to cover as well, lots of great information wrapped in a great layout.
Posted on January 22, 2007
Simanek said:
Is it a European paper format, or is that just the distortion in the photos? Looks kinda tall. I hope that’s the case.
Posted on January 22, 2007
Adrian said:
Simanek, No, it is the same size as before. The distortion is thanks to the camera in my cell phone…
Posted on January 22, 2007
Andrew said:
Not bad for a camera Phone Adrian!
To be honest, i’ve never seen in the magazine, the same problems as the the rest of the BADG crew and always felt that if i was one of the few designers responsible for the publication, that i’d have something to be quite proud of including into my porfolio.
I thought the overall design was good. I agree with you and think the covers looked a bit cumbersome with the type as jumbled as it sometimes was (although it was No Raygun Magazine). I always liked the photography despite what subject it featured. the images always seemed to mesh well with the inner-content and design. These bright and contrasted representations of what you would find inside should you decide to read any further. Never bothered me much.
Although i am a BIG sans-serif fan and sometimes think the outcome of using serifs force a magazine or piece of print to look a bit stuffy and less contemporary to it’s audience.
It’s a toss-up i guess. I really hope they stick with this format in their next issue and the ones to follow.
Posted on January 23, 2007
Chris Rugen said:
They went with Hoefler & Frere-Jones for all of their typefaces, so I’m not surprised that it works for you in spite of being counter to your expectations. They give a brief bit of explanation for their design choices in this post on wired.com. They will “continue fine-tuning the look of the magazine in the months to come, and wired.com will get a complete overhaul in early spring.” Interesting.
Posted on January 23, 2007
Joe Moran said:
Adrian: You should e-mail H&FJ and ask them what the fonts are. I don’t get Wired. But would like to know what Dadich is using.
Or if someone knows, please pipe-up! :-)
VR/
Posted on January 23, 2007
Glenn said:
I bring good news to us sans-serif fans.
Look at the logo.
Posted on January 23, 2007
Bill Kerr said:
Really really digging the redesign. The body text is a massive improvement in my opinion. You can’t go wrong wit HF&J, they seem to nail these types of jobs every time.
Great post, Adrian!
Posted on January 23, 2007
ben swift said:
I liked it better before they changed the size.
Posted on January 24, 2007
Andy C. said:
looks great! i’m excited to pick up a copy.
Posted on January 28, 2007
Scott Dadich said:
Thanks for the feedback. We’re still working on improving it, but all in all, we’re very excited with the direction we’re heading in. The fonts are Vitesse, Vitesse Sans, Exchange, and Retina Display. Look for the March issue, hitting newsstands in two weeks. It’s going to knock your socks off.
Posted on February 2, 2007