As long as the magazines see a need for my photography and they are willing and capable of paying, then they can design in any way they choose.

What I personally feel about magazines is irrelevant.

I’m just sayin’

Thanks for the clarification!

Magazines have been damaged in part because the internet has been more compelling. Does ANYONE really think that filling pages of a magazine with MORE information will help them compete? I don’t think so.

There is a old adage for this kind of mindless myopia: “Not being able to see the forrest though the trees.”

I pine for the old days when there were no pictures in magazines and newspapers, ONLY black inky text. Photos like George Lois’ have cheapened and sensationalized periodical publications and destroyed their intellect. I remember the Nation, New Republic and the New York Review of Books. They didn’t cheapen themselves with sleazy photos. Maybe an occasional hand drawn illustration was added or a cartoon but none of these false illusions foisted upon us by photographs.

George Lois’ self-serving proselytizing is soooo obvious, it is hard to take him seriously.

Is that good enough reasoning for you Luddites out there?

Fantastic Man
Rouleur
Twin
Man About Town
The Ride Journal
Exit
Self Service
Monocle
10
Another
Pop
Love

@mitch how long do you have to show people how to do it? I don’t think it is necessary when you have decades of examples on how to do it. It’s like the Nike slogan – “Just Do It”

Yes there can be growth and improvements, better ways learned, but often eye’s become blinded. intellegence over used, kinda like the thinking outside the bax cartoon is appropos, and the biggest pitfall of all is greed. Which is fed to the people who have to produce the content. Fit more in we make more money. BS. I think you turn people off.

Personnally I think it’s like a Roman orgy out there and nobody knows whos doing who. Chaotic like the covers and the inside has more ads than content. Vomit

http://www.researchstudios.com/

To be fair, there are well designed good looking enjoyable publications. It is unfortunate that many newsstands don’t push them. There is instead a preference towards anything with the celebrity of the week on it … or the “what pic of Brad and/or Angelina have we not run this year” mentality. Sad.

http://www.theadclass.com/creative/julian-koenig-george-lois-origin-story

Information is a wonderful thing, but there are many ways to get it. How it’s organized is the key, and it seems to me that information is just vomited on the page more often than not. Magazines are not web pages, they are objects, things to behold. Most magazines yell and scream and bludgeon us with too much, there’s no place to reflect on what you’ve read, too many little boxes fighting for our attention. If I want to be subjected to a screaming medium, then I turn on the TV. If I want endless information, then I log on to the web.

I feel for everyone who works in the print media, the world is changing and the people who run it haven’t figured out if they should zig or zag. The problem is, the people who buy magazines, and the fact that it is a market driven industry. Make money or go away. Good clean design does not win the day. The populace has the attention span of a flea, and they spend their money on screaming headlines and little boxes, so the magazines go where the money is. In a simpler day, magazines had relevance to it’s readers. Maybe that day has just gone away and there is no way to recapture the magic.

Yes, magazines are people, and it’s a shame that people loose their livelihood when a magazine goes under. It’s also a shame the way many magazines have treated their employees over the years, not to mention their contract employees and temps, but that’s another subject for another day.

The best will find a way to make sense to their audience, and when there are only a few magazines left on the newsstand they will indeed stand out. Despite all that I’ve said, I do realize that I am not the target demographic and no one cares what I think.

I have no doubt at all that the designers working at the magazines would happily do things differently in an ideal world.

Your pain ends. National Geographic Adventure is no more.

Completely disagree. The more information we have, the more that the cream rises to the top.

The best will always stand out, and now it will stand out even more.

Also, magazines don’t deserve anything. Magazines are made of people – do they deserve to all be fired?

Funny, I thought it had to do with the INTERNET.

Notice George only talks about design – he does not equate it with the magazine industry decline. While you could argue that it is implied, you could also argue that NO AMOUNT OF BRILLIANT DESIGN will save the publications that have to compete with things like George’s interview online, this blog that could not be a print publication, and this silly comment. There just isn’t enough time in the day, plain and simple.

His personality is infectious, but he can’t talk about the business side of things as they exist today, he is simply not qualified. If he had to compete with the internet, he would be in the same position as everyone else.

Somehow I started receiving National Geographic Adventure, and it’s painful to look at, as are most for profit (?) magazines. Just massive visual confusion.

Oh if this could only change, but then isn’t this a “more is better” society?