Culture

Prospect's new look: a designer tells all

February 25, 2009
Some of our earlier test visuals
Some of our earlier test visuals




Prospect readers will have no doubt noticed that our March issue has a new look and feel. A layout redesign is not something we undertake lightly, but this one is more than an aesthetic flourish. What you see in the magazine, and reflected on this blog, is the product of lots of internal analysis, reader research and other mulling. The result is as much about structure, organization and navigation as about how the magazine looks.

The process began almost a year ago with some internal discussions. We knew we needed to smarten up the magazine, functionally as well as visually, but we weren’t sure how far we needed to go: a “tweak,” a “refresh?” The more we tried to modify the existing design the more it became clear that we needed to start again from first principles.

With this in mind, in October last year we approached Simon Esterson—an award-winning designer who has become something of a touchstone in the world of magazine and newspaper design—and presented him with a loose and somewhat contradictory brief. He and his colleagues have worked with us over the past three months, bringing their professional experience and clear-sightedness to the task, and have produced a design of coherence, elegance and unity of purpose.

In design, form should follow function. In our case, this means it needs to be appropriate to our content. Our stuff is eclectic and unpredictable—something we’re proud of and intend to continue. But the magazine’s old typography and layout have perhaps tended to manifest those characteristics a bit too literally. In doing so, we came to feel—and, our surveys said, so did some of you—that we sometimes obscured the quality and breadth of that content.

So, what's new? The new layout is actualy much simpler in many ways than before. We've gone for a look which allows for greater contrast between individual articles and a less regimented approach to the positioning of pictures, headings and so forth.

We’ve also dispensed with our previous range of typefaces. Gone are the many different fonts dotted about, replaced with a single serif font (meaning that it has curly bits at the end of the letters) called Brunel, which was specially designed for use in magazine text and headlines. This, in design terms, contributes to a calmer, more inviting overall feel.

The nice thing we have to play with is that, unlike many magazines, Prospect readers actually like text. This is, in turn, a sign of the magazine's authority, and its difference. So the revised design presents the text clearly and simply—we’re not afraid to have entire pages of text where necessary—but has also introduced larger images and more white space, allowing wider variation in pace and greater clarity of distinction between sections.

The text itself is now improved by clearer navigation, typography and picture presentation—so you know whether you are looking at one of the regular sections, a column or a feature. The page headers now refer to content rather than form—so at the top of the page it will say “philosophy” and not “essay” if the essay is about philosophy, as one of ours is this month.

Subject areas, meanwhile, have been more helpfully grouped together: for example, the new Science & Technology section. The design of the cover is also simpler and more flexible, but with a strong visual signature that is unmistakably “Prospect.” This graphic theme is continued throughout the magazine, establishing a distinctive character that is both confident and authoritative as well as attractive and inviting to the reader.

So: what's the catch? Obviously some will prefer the old look, but we hope not too many. But I can say one thing. Sometimes magazine redesigns look pretty, but leave the reader feeling short-changed. This is often because appealing design can mean fewer words: the text is given over to pictures, graphics and so forth. But we didn’t want to do that. By being efficient with our use of space, and we have more pages—so the nice thing is that there has been little or no effect on the word count. In this case, more really does mean more.

We are very pleased with Prospect’s new look: we hope you’ll agree with us. Do let us know what you think.