Chapter 3 - Deconstructing Magazine Typographic Design
"Good design contains an unconscious prognosis of future tendencies
because it is based upon the atmospheric conditions created by the
manifold cultural and social requirements of a certain period which
already carries the germ of the future."
L.Moholy-Nagy (1)
The design of media texts is an area that has seen little critical
analysis compared to the content of media texts. However, design is as
equally important as content, if not more so. Design has an effect on
the audience before they have begun to decipher the content of a media
text, even if they do not explicitly recognise this factor. Print
magazines operate in the realm of cultural politics by fostering,
creating and maintaining subcultural groups, and their visual design
plays a central role in this process. Typographic design makes up a
large component of the visual interface of the magazine text. Therefore
it must be questioned to reveal the political, economic, institutional,
cultural and technological traces of meaning embedded in the graphic
representation of a text.
The magazines from which the following seven examples were taken
are: Ray Gun, Wired, Rolling Stone and Cream. Due to limitations of
space, this project cannot provide a comprehensive study of all magazine
typographic practices, or indeed a complete analysis of these specific
magazines. The following magazine spreads will be analysed as case
studies, using the interpretative and questioning strategies of
deconstruction. Case studies are in-depth analyses that examine the
"particularity and complexity" of cases and can be used as a research
tool in many contexts.(2) As case studies only examine a few cases at
length, it would seem to be a contradiction that generalisations can be
made. However, it is recognised that certain things will come up more
than once to legitimate generalisations being drawn across a wider scale
of any given subject.(3)
The examples selected for analysis in this chapter can be generally
situated on the border between mainstream and avant-garde. Contemporary
culture’s rapid mainstreaming of avant-garde practices, in an effort to
keep up with society’s demand for ‘newness’ is validation for such an
intensive study of examples that may be considered as unrepresentative
of the wider scale of magazine design practices. Ray Gun represents
perhaps the most ‘avant-garde’ of the magazines examined here, however
its design has been appropriated by mainstream culture to such a degree
that it is no longer recognised as ‘avant-garde’. Wired, Rolling Stone
and Cream can be considered mainstream magazines, but are relatively
avant-garde in regard to their attitudes towards design and visual
expression.
RAY GUN
Ray Gun is an American based magazine that has been produced since 1992,
and is distributed internationally. The original premise behind Ray Gun
was that it would be the music and fashion magazine of the 1990s, and
pick up the slack left by the music press's move to conservatism.(4)
Ray Gun's most prominent visual period was under the art direction of
David Carson from 1992 to 1996.
Rick Poynor says that in the four years since its launch in 1992, Ray
Gun’s design was heralded for being "radical", "subversive",
"revolutionary", "innovative" and "ground breaking", but it has become
so thoroughly assimilated by the mass media it is now
"unrevolutionary."(5) The April 1999 issue of Ray Gun, number 66, sees
the magazine reveal a significant design overhaul that is far removed
from the typographic ‘anarchy’ of the David Carson days. This
significant design change would clearly be influenced by several
political, economic and social factors. However, in the editorial
introduction of the April 1999 issue, Ray Gun’s editors and designers
articulate the design reorientation in the following terms:
"The dawning of a new century has given us an opportunity to reexamine
the role, the mission, and the focus of Ray Gun, … Ray Gun does indeed
have another new look – cleaner, leaner and stronger … the shorthand
we’ve been telling ourselves in the halls is "legible but credible".(6)
This redesign of Ray Gun points to the fate of ‘avant-garde’ practices
that tend to be quickly appropriated by mainstream capitalist culture
and subsequently results in the obsolescence of those same ‘avant-garde’
practices. This cyclical movement of avant-garde into the mainstream
also subsequently leaves a further space for more notably radical
avant-garde practices that would take up from where Ray Gun has
apparently left off. The following Ray Gun spreads are from its earlier
and more notably ‘avant-garde’ period, and were designed by David
Carson.
RAY GUN - 1994 - Brian Ferry spread
The body text of this Ray Gun spread, (Plate 1) appears in the typestyle
Zapf Dingbats.(7) Zapf Dingbats substitutes alphanumeric codes for
symbols, thus "a b c" is represented as "a b c". This spread would have
first appeared in an alphanumeric typeface and then mutated into picture
symbols in the midst of the magazine’s digital production processes.
The absence of alphanumeric characters inhabits the presence of the Zapf
Dingbats’ icons in this spread, as it is a common typestyle on
computers. As such it traces the process of mutability within the
digital environment to change one form into another. The process of the
mutation of these typographic signifiers is an absence of this printed
text. This trace to the presence of digital-electronic production, and
its subsequent mutation of signifiers, brings into question the
stability and fixity of the signifiers of language in the
digital-electronic age.
The use of non-alphanumeric signifiers for a whole story in an English
language magazine plays with the dominance and acceptance of meaning
systems. It could be claimed that this Brian Ferry article is not
readable due to its pictorially codified nature. As symbols, icons and
pictures can be traced back in history to the earliest forms of written
communication it would seem inevitable that iconic and pictographic
signifiers should move from mere decoration to an important message
carrier. With the proliferation and popularity of obscure dingbat
typographies in the digital age such a shift has great potential, and
thus the content of this magazine spread could quite well be readable
along iconic lines.
The design of this spread supports the desires of Generation X that
thrives on rebelling against traditional conventions. Ray Gun’s audience
are Generation X’ers, who would be familiar with the design and
editorial attitudes of the magazine. Thus the typographic design of this
spread would presumably be well received. However, those unfamiliar
with Ray Gun’s style and attitudes would find it difficult to make sense
of this spread compared to more straight forward or traditional
magazines such as Time or Woman’s Weekly. The typographic design of this
spread exclude a wide general audience for one that is smaller, but
loyal to Ray Gun and its stylistic expression of culturally encoded
political statements. This Ray Gun spread engages itself in a form of
elitism, where only a select socio-cultural group which is literate in
the multi-layered, expressive and subversive practices that Ray Gun’s
visual design demands can interpret the various levels of meaning of
this spread’s typographic signifiers.
To reveal the full political and institutional implications of this
spread, the context of this typographic manifestation must be taken into
account. The spread is about Brian Ferry, a musician who had his fame a
generation before that of Ray Gun’s identified readership group,
Generation X. It is highly unlikely that Ray Gun readers would find a
long article about Brian Ferry at all interesting. Therefore Ray Gun’s
designers have mutated this article into picture symbols that
considerably liven up the dense block of text. Through the manipulation
of typography, Ray Gun is making a cultural and political statement
about Brian Ferry on behalf of the socio-cultural and political
orientations of its readers, who would presumably consider Brian Ferry
an irrelevant figure. However, Ray Gun could also be seen as doing Brian
Ferry a favour in returning him to an arena of discussion and
commentary by including him in the magazine in the first place.
Primarily though, the typography of this spread reveals the active role
that Ray Gun’s producers have taken in enculturating the reader into
their own institutional and cultural politics which are similar to those
of the audience, through the iconic transformation of linguistic
signifiers.
This spread is a typical Ray Gun challenge to deeply engage its readers
in the decipherment of its content and ideas, further reinforcing the
exclusivity of Ray Gun to a very specific and select group of readers.
Due to the availability of the Zapf Dingbats typestyle on personal
computers, it would be possible to reconstruct the visual signifiers of
this spread and then mutate them into alphanumeric signifiers that
reveal the content of the article that has been subsumed by this play of
signifiers. This Ray Gun spread could even be interpreted as a graphic
design work in which signifiers exist for their own aesthetic sake,
beyond any quest for meaning – the ‘art for art’s sake’ argument.
The exact intentions of Ray Gun’s producers are not explicitly clear in
this spread and the interpretation that each reader will derive from
this spread will be essentially limitless in differentiation. Readers’
interpretations of this spread will essentially differ in relation to
several things: their degree of knowledge and experience with the
magazine; their knowledge of the digital production environment that
allowed this particular typographic mutation; their knowledge of the
ideologies of the magazines producers; and their knowledge of Brian
Ferry. Ray Gun is a magazine that generally likes to see its audience
partake actively in the construction of the messages and meanings that
their spreads contain rather than be passive consumers of the text’s
meaning, thus this spread’s typographic design stimulates many possible
traces of meanings.
RAY GUN - 1992 - Too Much Joy
This Ray Gun spread (Plate 2) features an interview with a band, a
collective group of musicians.(8) The major part of the typography on
this page has imploded to such a degree that it strongly pushes the
boundaries of legibility.(9) Implosion of typography is a production
technique where characters are made to burst inwards on each other,
overlap and merge together. In the digital environment, typographic
forms are mathematical codes and are not hindered by physical edges such
as lead and metal typewriter forms, so implosion is a simple process.
Kerning, the spacing between letters, and leading, the space between
lines of type, can be reduced on the computer to a degree that forces
letters to meld into one another and the spaces between lines of type to
collapse. This spread’s typography however not only implodes, but also
explodes.
The page creates an expressive visual representation of a band interview
situation, a specifically oral-aural communication. Generally, music
interviews are casual and chatty where interjection and talking freely
over others is often a part of the activity. The typographic signifiers
of this page are densely layered, seemingly randomly arranged, exploding
and imploding, and thus represent the dynamic interchange of dialogue
of the five people partaking in this particular interview.
There are several typestyles used within this page. It is impossible
however to accurately identify each of these by name as there are so
many typographic forms available to the magazine designer and many of
them can be very similar. Since typographies themselves have the
capacity to possess the appearance of a personality, each typeface used
on this page traces an intertextual connection to the personality and
voice of each individual in the band. Irrespective of whether a
distinction can be made between each band member and typographic form,
the different verbal characteristics represented by the type can be
determined. Most predominantly represented is a loud deep voice through
the large bold type,(10) a softer and articulate person through the
white script typestyle,(11) and a buoyant, eclectic personality through
the notably hybrid typeform that blends the representational
characteristics of several typestyles.
The consistency of one typeface throughout the entire opening section is
a trace to the dominance of one person speaking throughout the
interview, however this person is not signified with a dominance of the
spoken voice. Random interjections by other band members are at times
overpowering. The large bold type, set in all capitals, implies an
overpowering dominance of voice where it forcefully impresses itself
over the other type, obscuring all that is behind it. This spread’s
typographic design can be seen as participating in a deconstructionist
play on the Western hierarchical division between speech and writing, a
matter that Derrida debates most deeply in his text, Of
Grammatology.(13)
‘Allatonceness’ is a notion that has come to prominence in the
electronic and digital ages.(14) ‘Allatonceness’, whilst most notably
described in reference to the late twentieth century, has a much longer
historical presence in oral culture as verbal communication often
manifests itself in a manner that can be described as ‘allatonce’. This
Ray Gun page presents a typographic visualisation of the ‘allatonceness’
a verbal conversation can exemplify. The interpretation of this
typographic presentation is however largely tied to the perceptual
orientations of audiences that deeply engage with the digital-electronic
technologies, as they are skilled at listening and interacting with
many things at once.
This Ray Gun spread plays on the distinction between explosion and
implosion, and redefines these binaries as interactive and co-dependant
notions. The implosion of typography on this page results from an
explosion of speech from each individual in the interview. Type explodes
from the photograph at the bottom right of the page, then implodes into
a lively discussion that flows up the page. The band photograph is
partially obscured by typography, which adds to the sensation of the
words exploding directly from the band member’s mouths.
The explosion and subsequent implosion of this typography creates an
intertextual connection to the speech bubble. The type is sparse and
tapered nearest the photograph at the bottom of the page, and expands up
the page, encompassing more space. A common way of visually
representing verbal dialogue is cartoon-like speech bubbles and can be
found in many printed texts.(15) It is by confining the explosive
discussion of five people talking to the boarders of a page, the visual
representation reverses from explosion into implosion and simulates an
intertextual allusion to the textual confines of a speech bubble.
The fact that some sections of type are barely legible does not deter
the Ray Gun reader from any communication of meaning at all. Rather,
this presentation is an expressive visualisation for the reader of a
dynamic oral environment. Thus in this Ray Gun spread, the digital
environment has revealed its ability to produce signifiers that refer to
the signifiers of other signifying systems. The typographic signifiers
on this page trace the absence of sound, but also the presence of the
variable typographic signifiers traces the signifiers of oral
communication such as level, inflection and inconsistency of voices.
WIRED
Wired began in 1993 and continues as a prominent voice in the now
massive array of digital commentary magazines. Wired is produced in
America and distributed internationally. Heller and Fernandes describe
Wired as:
"...the first mass-market magazine of the digital age – the Rolling
Stone of the web-site-set – and its colourfully layered, hyper-text and
raucous picture format has become the standard for how to design
digitally in print."(16)
WIRED 2.12 - December 1994 - Net Surf - p.195
Titled "Netsurf," (Plate 3) is an often regular section in Wired
contains short commentary about new things on the Internet. The design
of this page indicates a significational play between an activity in the
natural world and its metaphorical parallel in the technological world.
The term ‘netsurf’ itself reveals a trace to surfing in the ocean.
‘Netsurfing' is a digital-electronic activity that involves fluidly
navigating around the texts of the Internet in a manner that is not
unlike surfing in the ocean.
This page’s title - "Netsurf", is distinguished as two separate words,
‘net’ and ‘surf’ through colour and bold configurations. These
typographic signifiers trace the manifestations of hypertextuality. In
the digital environment once a hyper-link has been activated it changes
colour, and a dominant secondary colour is white. The white colouring of
the term ‘net’ suggests that the reader has interactively chosen and
entered the technological path over the natural ‘surf’ pathway, that has
bought them to this page of the magazine.
The body text of this spread is set in two columns that do not resemble
the rigid grid format that most magazines adhere to.(17) The two
columns are in a curved wave-like pattern; you could almost be mistaken
for feeling the constant flowing, rolling sensation of the natural
ocean. Creating curved columns is simple in the digital environment due
to its fluid placement of type into text boxes.(18) The text in the
columns has been forced justified which cleanly defines the curved
columns.(19) These typographic curves intertextually link this
technologised printed text with the natural tidal pull back and forth,
which underpins the fluidic motions of the ocean.
The body text is presented bolder than most other text type featured in
the magazine which aids the visual strength of this text and page, not
supported by traditional vertically straight column pillars. The
typestyle used in this spread is a ‘san serif’.(20) San serif typefaces
were originally developed during the Industrial Revolution in response
to the evolving technologisation of the time.(21) The use of a san
serif typestyle for this spread is a purposeful choice as they
implicitly represent technology based environments. The complete visual
design of this page however exoticises this technological representation
by the intertextual connections between the page’s fresh ocean colours
and typographic curves reinforcing the presence of softly rolling waves.
The design of this spread attracts two dominant types of audiences: the
technologically attuned reader, the computer buff/geek; and the surfer,
or the reader that can be persuasively lulled by clever design. Whilst
Wired predominantly serves the subcultural group that engage with, and
are interested in digital-electronic technologies, it tends more towards
design techniques which will aid the integration of subcultures that
are less knowledgeable in the technologies Wired involves itself in
discussing. This attitude towards design reveals the considerable
economic agenda of commercial magazines to attract the largest possible
audience and sustain the financial viability of their magazine.
WIRED 3.01 - January 1995 - You Used to Watch Television. Now it Watches You. - p.124-5
This Wired spread (Plate 4) is about surveillance videos in public and
private spaces. The typographic design of this spread essentially
reveals the digital environment’s mutability but also supports the
notion that typography is a signifying system that can be powerfully
imbued with meanings beyond that of the typographic representation of
the word.
The left-hand page contains a pixelated image of a still from a security
camera’s black and white surveillance monitor. Above and over this
image the typography is layered in different sizes, styles, and in black
and white. There are lines through some pieces of the type, which
includes some numbers and symbol script, with the predominantly English
alphabetic characters. Some sections of the type are even totally
blocked out. Highly manipulated, layered and broken representations such
as this are described as deconstructionist typographic practice.
Deconstructive designs generally signal a breakdown of structure, fixity
and the suppression of a transcendental signified, such as ‘the truth’
for example, as a result of a vast proliferation of signifiers.
There are several paths of interpretation emphasised by the typographic
signifiers on the left-hand page of this spread. Primarily they trace
the complex levels of codes and procedures one must endure to access a
computer database. A reader’s subjective knowledge and perceptions of
digital-electronic technologies will come into play here in determining a
dominant meaning implied by this Wired spread. These typographic
signifiers could signify the shifting levels of identification that a
computer itself will go through to grant and/or restrict access to its
databases. It could be that the owners, managers or content producers of
the computer or television that are behind the ‘screen’ restricting
access. It is also implied that these typographic marks are signs that a
hacker is attempting to break into top secret databases. In the digital
environment ‘firewalls’ are used to restrict the access of unwanted
hackers.(22) In this printed environment, a firewall has been created
by typographic manipulation and layering, that blocks the reader’s
movement in engaging more deeply with the text.
The image of the person's face on the left page is imbued with religious
symbolism - it alludes to a Jesus-like figure. This image, combined
with the layered and mutated typography, tends to imply that the self is
no longer a sacred entity with a soul and personality. Rather, the
individual in contemporary society has become a barcode number on a
digital database. Barcode numbers can be used to constantly monitor an
individual’s activities and movements. To illustrate the lost sense of
self-identity that is implied by this Wired image and typographic
manipulation, let me use myself as an example. In the greater scheme of
things, the powerful political and economic leaders of this nation do
not recognise me as Larissa Elaine Moody, a young woman with ideas,
aspirations and fears. Rather, I am 202 212 195C to the socio-economic
controlling institution Centrelink, 201 600 961 to the powerful economic
institution known as the Australian Tax Office, and in the alleged
learning oasis of the university, they just call me 967-1895.
This Wired article begins centered at the top of the right-hand side
page in small, black, san serif letters that draw the reader in as if
they are discovering classified information. But half way down the page
the reader is visually jarred by the word ‘caught’. This word is
displayed largely in a san serif font that traces the processes of
digital mutation, through a motion blur filter and forced justification
across the width of the page.(23) There is a sense of speed implied by
the word ‘caught’, due to the blurred edges of each letterform alluding
to an object that is fast rushing past. This particular typographic
signifier is powerful and highly directed in its impact, and resonates
in the reader who has now possibly conjured up feelings of someone or
something (such as a computer) watching them. After being ‘caught’, the
story continues in a small paragraph centered at the bottom of the page.
The size and position of this piece of text emphasises the isolation of
the story from other elements on the page; this also isolates the
reader, reinforcing a possible growing sensation of uncomfortableness.
The typographic design of this page has successfully weakened the reader
into the powerfully directive and emotive textual environment that
Wired’s producers have created.
The dominant inflections from this spread’s visual design is the
exposure of the underlying political-economic control of computer
networks, and subsequently the control of society by technological
gatekeepers. This visual presentation pushes the reader to critically
examine technology and those who control and operate it, rather than
simply take it for granted. If these pages were presented in a more
traditional way with two plain columns on a white background, a pull
quote, boxed picture and banner headline, the meanings interpreted by
the reader would be vastly different than those of this particular
presentation’s reading. Through the design of this spread, Wired has
actively implicated itself into the critical questioning of the
technology they usually support and advertise vehemently. Although Wired
readers could be considered as ‘technology-friendly’ due to their
intensive interaction with communications technologies, this particular
spread manages to arouse and play on the techno-fear of its audience and
society generally about the ‘real’ way in which many digital media
technologies are used. This Wired spread explicitly reveals the nature
of typographic signifiers to communicate messages, ideas and emotions
without the actual magazine article being read in its entirety.
WIRED 2.12 - December 1994 - The Transom - p.45
The content of this Wired page (Plate 5) is an online news journal
geared specifically to 18 – 34 year olds. Through its visual design,
this page suggests the aesthetic of speed, virtuality and
hypertextuality. The directional layout and colour of the typographic
signifiers trace the fast delivery of information in the digital
environment. The colour and three-dimensionality of the elements on this
page underpins the trace to the virtuality of the digital environment.
The page’s title, "The Transom" is curved and stretched out of
proportion from a traditional horizontal plane. The upward curve and
bright orange representation of the letters against the blue background
alludes to a sensation of fluidic oscillation in the static
two-dimensional print environment. The body text of the short article is
fluorescent pink. Fluorescent colours are used consistently by Wired to
create intertextual links between the texts of the digital-electronic
environment with the textual representations of print culture.(24) The
extensive use of fluorescent colours in Wired generally implicates the
typographic signifiers of this page into referring to itself.
Self-referentiality, the capacity of a signifier to refer to itself
rather than a corresponding signified, or meaning, has come into
prominence in the digital-electronic age as a result of the ability to
produce signifiers that reference other signifiers ad infinitum.
The brightness and contrast of the typography in relationship to the
other elements on the page gives the typography power to jump off the
page and move into an illusionary three-dimensional space. It can often
seem as though words are flying out of your computer screen but it is
only an illusion of the digital-electronic screen’s two-dimensional
surface. The colour of the typography alone is powerful enough to lift
it off the restrictive confines of a static page, however the skewed
angle at which the type has been positioned is the necessary
complimentary factor.
The elements featured on this page are oriented in the same direction,
thus the information appears to be fast passing by from right to left
across the page and moving out from its apparent depths to its outer
surface limits. This reinforces the illusion that the type is speeding
past us, the column of text is aligned left and jagged right so the
lines of type inconsistently trail off behind the type moving rapidly in
front. This column of type has been digitally manipulated to enable it
to be rendered at an apparently three-dimensional angle. This is obvious
since it has not just simply been a matter of angling the top and
bottom edges of the column text box. Three-dimensionality and movement
can be implied through the digital production environment’s ability to
precisely and extensively manipulate the spatial position of typography.
The typographic manipulations of this page brings dynamism to the static
printed form, if only an illusory dynamism. The sense of dynamism
common in digital and electronic media such as computers and television
is something that magazines up until the advent of digital print design
software, have found difficult to represent.
ROLLING STONE
Rolling Stone has been around since the sixties in America, but has
fractured into country specific versions that are primarily designed the
same but have different content. The following spread was derived from
the Australian version of Rolling Stone.
ROLLING STONE - August 1997 - The Proud Highway - pps.74-75
The layout of this Rolling Stone spread is an expressive reflection of
the content of the larger article. The content of this feature is a
collection of letters by Hunter S. Thompson, an American writer and
journalist. The letters featured in this spread were written between
1956 and 1967. These magazine pages have been designed as pages within
themselves in order to represent ‘real’ letters that have been
positioned onto Rolling Stone’s actual pages.
Hunter S. Thompson wrote the letters in this spread before the
proliferation of personal computers and electronic word processing,
therefore the entire article has been displayed in a typewriter-like
typeface. The use of this specific typeform draws an intertextual link
between personal letters written in the 1950s and 1960s on manual
typewriters and this digitally produced magazine spread. The photograph
on the left page, a snapshot of Thompson working at his typewriter, also
creates a direct correlation between the overall content of the story
and the typographic choice. An authentic typewriter often displays
natural imperfections in response to an individual’s particular use of
it. The varying pressure with which each typewriter key is hit results
in a slightly different impression. Well-used typewriters tend to have
keys that are bent out of alignment and/or have worn edges. Thus
authentic typewriter typography is generally a random combination of
dark, light, ink blotted and scratchy looking letters. A typewriter
cannot delete what has already been typed, like digital production
mediums can; thus some words are crossed out with a secondary typewriter
imprint of ‘x’ over the words that are intended to be erased or
disregarded.(25)
However, this spread has actually been produced by a digital font, which
programmatically represents the typewriter’s inconsistent impressions
and sense of journalistic urgency. Even in respect of the typeface’s
intertextual connections to original typewriter imprints, these specific
signifiers are far too consistent to be a manual typewriter imprint.
Close examination of each letter of the alphabet in this spread will
prove this, as every character is the same as its direct replica. One
slight contradiction is the appearance of the two number 6’s in the
title, one is filled and one is not. This can however be easily achieved
in a digital production environment through image manipulation
programs. The asterisks that divide the sections of text have been
inconsistently applied with the bold function to appear as if the
typewriter key has been hit with irregular force. This spread thus plays
on the digital-analog, perfect-imperfect distinctions.
Typewriters are still around today but it is the electronic typewriter
that prevails complete with options for deleting and editing text before
it prints the line or paragraph. Appropriations of typewriter type in
the digital environment have become an increasingly common sight in
contemporary culture. They trace the possible absence of creating new
forms by merely composing digital hybrids of already existing typeforms
through the digital production practices of quotation and pastiche.
By crossing out, yet leaving present, the crossed out word as a feature
of the text, this spread suggests a trace to an active deconstructionist
work. Essentially, these signifiers are a reference to the limitations
of textual production methods before the development and proliferation
of digital technologies. However, there is a notable intertextual
reference here to the theory that informs Deconstruction. The practical
application of Derrida’s notion ‘sous rature’, translated as ‘under
erasure’, involves writing a word and crossing it out, but still
printing both word and deletion.(26) For a deconstructionist, this
feature of the text opens up another textual path that could be followed
ad infinitum.
CREAM
Cream is a quarterly culture magazine produced in Australia by Future
Perfect Publications. Cream is a relatively new magazine with only six
issues produced to date, covering the last year and half. Due to its
relatively recent beginnings in magazine culture, Cream reflects a
considerably fresh and ‘avant-garde’ visual feel.
CREAM - Autumn 1999 - Issue 5 - Contents - p.3
This Cream content’s page foregrounds the pixelated texts and
fragmentation of the digital-electronic environment. The majority of
typefaces used on this page emphasise the structure of the digital bit
and pixel, the discreet units that combine together to make meaning in
the digital environment. The title of the page, ‘Contents’, at the top
right hand corner, most obviously emphasises the fragmentation and the
discreet units of digital information. These highly bitmapped typefaces
trace a lineage back to the early days of digital typographic production
of the early and mid 1980s, which are now considered highly primitive
in regards to the high resolution and output of contemporary digital
production tools.
There are minimal grammatical marks such as commas, capitals or full
stops to break up the textual information of the page. Instead, the
information is broken up by colour: the page numbers are black, and the
contents of the pages are in a red-brown. This dual use of colour
strengthens the trace to the binary structure of the digital environment
that is already strongly implied by the fragmented typestyles used on
this page. The lack of grammatical marks implies a trace to an evolving
form of reading and literacy that is bound up within the
digital-electronic environment. This being to get information
‘allatonce’, rather than in the traditional fragmented, linear and
logical way with grammatical pauses, stops and separations.
The main block of text has been force-justified. The computer makes its
own adjustments to spacing so that text is evenly aligned on each side
of the space allocated it. Forced justification is not economically
feasible by any other technological means of type manipulation than the
digital computer. Manual typewriter texts are always left aligned and
jagged right. In the case of lead printing, forced justification is
achieved by manual hand setting, a laborious and time-consuming activity
considering that digital production tools can shift even the smallest
amount of space with the click of a button or the tap of a key. The
presentation of this page emphasises the immense shift from manual to
machine labour that the digital computer has enabled.
Above the main body text sits a mark which reveals an intertextual
connection to the well-known barcode, the magnetised graphic mark which
finds itself on most commodities in contemporary culture. This
typographic signifier reinforces the notion that the magazine reader is a
consumer and part of a highly commodified culture, that barcodes and
sells ideas as well as products. Layered underneath the text, down the
left-hand side of the page, is a large repeat of this barcode number.
The layering of signifiers subsequently also creates layers of meaning.
This example of typographic layering traces the many instances of
subliminal barcoding in contemporary society due to its lightened colour
and position underneath other signifiers. Layering of typography in
this fashion is an explicitly digital manifestation where texts are
built in computer programs such as Photoshop and Quark Xpress
specifically by layers which can be as numerous as the text producer
desires. To achieve layering in an analog design and printing situation,
the various levels of the text would need to be separately produced and
then in a sequential order, printed one at a time without the
computer’s ‘undo’ function.
CONCLUDING REMARKS
These deconstructive analyses have revealed that typographic design is
not just an aesthetic practice but an inherently political, economic and
institutional practice. Magazine producers actively shape the way
meanings, messages and ideas communicated through typographic
presentations, although this is not often explicitly recognised by the
magazine reader. Due to the active role that typographic signifiers and
their layout play in magazine texts, it is a vast misrepresentation to
identify typography as a transparent media form. This chapter has
proposed then that the full implications of meaning cannot be derived
from a text without also consideration of its visual design, especially
typography. In performing such a form of textual analysis, one is
essentially critically analysing of institutional, political and
economic systems of society that create texts in this era of
technological immersion.
FOOTNOTES
(1) L.Moholy-Nagy, Vision In Motion, Paul Theobold & Co, Chicago, 1969, p.57.
(2) R.E.Stake, The Art of Case Study Research, Sage Publications, Thousand Oaks, 1995, p.xi.
(3) Stake, 1995, p.7-8.
(4) L.Blackwell, The End of Print, The Graphic Design of David Carson, Laurence King Publishing,
London, 1995, unpaginated.
(5) R.Poynor, ‘Alternative By Design?’ in Ray Gun, Out Of Control, Simon & Schuster, London,
1997, p.231.
(6) R.Bookasta, E.Gladstone, M.Woodlief & R.Frost, ‘Letter from the Editors,’ Ray Gun, Issue 66,
April 1999, p.16.
(7) ‘Body text’ is a design production term used to describe
the main section of a typographic text that
usually consists of paragraphs. Body text is used in conjunction with
the notion ‘display text,’
which refers to headlines, captions and drop caps, to describe the
various elements of a typographic text on a printed page. See T.Litchy,
Design Principles for Desktop Publishers, Scott, Foresman Computer
Books, Illinois, 1989, p.25. Secondly, ‘spread’ is also a common design
phrase used by magazine publishers to describe a collective group of
pages that are designed as a whole or even the design of a single page.
This Brian Ferry article is a spread over two pages.
(8) Since this Ray Gun page was not derived primarily from the magazine, but a book reproduction of
the page, the image was too small to decipher the typography and determine who the band of
musicians may be.
(9) ‘Legibility’ is the traditional notion that describes the clarity of type for reading purposes.
(10) An example of a bold type would be Bodoni or Capitals.
(11) A script type is one such as Script MT Bold.
(12) Hybrid types are those such as Polaroid 22 and Kaputt
(13) J.Derrida’s, Of Grammatology, trans. G.C.Spivak, John Hopkins University Press, Baltimore,
1976, deconstructs the Western philosophical opposition of speech and writing. Writing has been
traditionally considered as an inferior copy of the spoken word, however Derrida argues that
writing is an active form of representation that invades thought and speech. This Ray Gun page
reveals Derrida’s argument that writing is not simply the inferior binary opposite to speech, but
writing inhabits speech, and even makes the physical qualities of speech possible.
(14) Marshall McLuhan argues in reference to the new electronic and emerging digital technologies of
his time that, "ours is a brand new world of allatonceness. "Time" has ceased, "space" has
vanished. We now live in a global village…a simultaneous happening." M.McLuhan & Q.Fiore,
The Medium is the Massage, An Inventory of Effects, Bantam Books, New York, 1967, p.63.
(15) Comic strips are the most prominent texts to use ‘speech bubbles’ in order to illustrate spoken
and thought words from written words. The Face magazine regularly uses speech bubbles to
enclose short articles and information, which implies a sense of orality present in the written text.
For a specific example see The Face, October 1998, Issue 21, p.45.
(16) S.Heller & T.Fernandes, Magazines, Inside and Out, PBC International, New York, 1996, p.109.
(17) Typographic grids are widely used in the construction of magazines, newspapers and books,
providing an underlying foundation for page design. Andre Jute says, "the primary purpose of the
grid is to create order out of chaos." A.Jute, Grids, The Structure of Graphic Design,
Rotovision, Switzerland, 1996, p.7. Holtzschue & Noriega, describe the typographic grid as a
"modular, two-dimensional grid that employs the X (vertical) and Y (horizontal) axes of Cartesian
coordinate space…the typographic grid uses a rectangular or square module within which the
relative areas of text, image, margins, and columns are manipulated." L.Holtzschue & E.Noriega,
Design Fundamentals for the Digital Age, Van Nostrand Rhienhold, New York, 1997, p.162.
(18) A ‘text box’ is the notion used by computer design programs and designers alike to describe the
way text is entered into and manipulated in the digital-electronic environment. Text boxes can be
created in traditional squares, rectangles and columns or freeform shapes.
(19) Forced justification is the process by which the computer can automatically adjust the spacing
between type to evenly align it on both sides of a text box.
(20) A ‘san serif’ type is one without serifs, the little end strokes, or tails that traditionally denoted a
writer’s pen strokes between letters.
(21) ‘San serifs’ first appeared in a type specimen by William Caslon IV in 1816. Robin Kinross says
the early nineteenth century demanded new kinds of printing and new means of transmitting
information. Through the advancing development of printing presses and typographic production,
san serifs typestyles popularised as the representational forms for political posters, railway
timetables, manufacturers’ catalogues and advertising. R.Kinross, Modern Typography, An Essay
In Critical History, Hyphen Press, London, 1994, p.28.
(22) Marcus Goncalves explains a ‘firewall’ to be "a router or computer (usually called a bastian host)
positioned between your internal network, or Web site for that matter, and the wild Internet. Its
purpose, as a security gate, is to provide security to those components inside the gate, as well as
control of whom (or what) is allowed to get into this protected environment, as well as those
allowed to go outside it. It works like a security guard at a front door, controlling and
authenticating who can or cannot have access to the site." M.Goncalves, Protecting Your Web
Site with Firewalls, Prentice Hall, New Jersey, 1997, p.156.
(23) Filters in Adobe Photoshop 4 used to blur type and images to imply motion and speed are; blur,
motion blur, gaussian blur, radial blur and smart blur.
(24) See J.Plunkett & L.Rossetto, Mind Grenades, Manifestos For The Future, HardWired,
California, 1996, unpaginated.
(25) The typographic signifier of ‘x’ is in itself one that has many fascinating traces of meaning that
could be followed endlessly. For example, consider these uses of the signifier of ‘x’: Generation
X, The X Files, X marks the spot, and X is often also used as the typographic mark for an
unknown quantity of something in mathematics.
(26) Sarup says that Derrida derived this strategic device from Martin Heidegger who often crossed
out the word ‘Being’, but let both the crossed out and uncrossed out word stand as the word was
‘inadequate yet necessary.’ M.Sarup, An Introductory Guide to Post-structuralism and
Postmodernism, Harvester Wheatsheaf, New York, 1988, p.35.
David Carson and Milton Glaser Ted Talks Analysis
I
thought that the two Designers that spoke, Milton Glaser and David
Carson offered two very interesting perspectives on the idea of the
conveying a message. Glaser talks about actively telling his viewers
what he is doing in his posters, a very unconventional method in design.
It is generally thought that if one must use words to describe what he
or she is showing then that image is not successful. I believe, though,
that describing imagery can be much more effective than leaving it by
itself. For example, the “Art Is Whatever” poster Glaser, showed at the
end of his talk, was successful in conveying it’s message without a
description; the simple idea of art as anything and everything. When he
read the description, though, it enlightened me to the meaning of other
parts on the piece, like about the figure in the back and the hat in the
front referencing surrealism. The text makes the poster more
dimensional in a sense; on one hand it functions as a poster conveying
its message but on the other hand a piece of art and an intellectual
query making you think more in depth about what you are seeing. Graphic
design is often thought as cold and deceitful because of its overall
goal to push products but Glaser’s use of a description really combats
that stigma making it almost welcoming by letting it be completely known
what he’s trying to do.
David
Carson brought up the idea of the importance of feeling created by a
design piece. Carson discusses that the feeling a piece gives can convey
more about the subject than just text alone. He gives the great example
with the “No Parking” signs in his slideshow in which both signs are on
the same background with the same words but the one written in a
distinctively crazy type face makes the the sign more effective to its
cause. This relates to Glaser’s idea of the poster being more than just a
simple way to convey a message but instead a piece that takes time and
contemplation to decipher to its fullest extent. Carson is also known
for his less conventional methods in design because of his often less
legible advertisements. He advocates this point with the slide that
shows the words “Don’t Mistake Legibility For Communication” only the
words are spliced in half and rearranged. The effect is that you still
end up reading the sentence even though it’s seemingly illegible. This
idea that the you need to communicate with the viewer in a visual way as
much, if not more than, in a direct way is interesting and similar to
Milton Glaser’s explanations of his posters in that both are dealing
more intimately with the viewer by creating pieces with greater depth. I
think that both of these designers are pushing the boundaries of design
and questioning it’s rules and they have both ended up with works that
are more interesting, and intellectually stimulating because of it.
David
Carson is considered by many to be one of the world’s most influential
graphic designers. He describes himself as a “hands-on” designer and has
a unique, intuition-driven way of creating everything from magazines to
TV commercials. In addition to various awards and achievements for his
graphic design and typography work, Carson has also written books on
design, including The End of Print (with Lewis Blackwell), Trek: David
Carson, Recent Werk, and the soon-to-be-released The Rules of Graphic
Design.
