[Reader-list] article on magazine design from japan

[Ravikant]

Interesting essay from www.honco.net
which hosts the journal - The Book and the Computer. Visit the site for photo 
features, films and symposia. Enjoy.

Ravikant 
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 A Miscellany of the Unexpected


Sugiura Kohei


In 50 years of designing magazines, I have had a great deal of freedom to 
develop and try out new ideas. I have worked for 40 different publications 
and on over 2,000 individual issues, and with just a few exceptions, I have 
been granted the opportunity to move beyond the predetermined constraints of 
conventional formats. Needless to say, I could not have produced this body of 
work alone. I have worked closely with the talented young designers on my 
staff, and I owe much to their invaluable assistance.

Looking back over this half century of work, I am aware that certain key 
principles have guided my approach to magazine design. It is my hope that the 
comments that follow will enrich the reader's experience in viewing my work.


Magazines gather the fruits of the season


A magazine is a bundle of paper that gathers from the world around us a 
miscellany of news, gossip and debate. The key word here is "miscellany." 
Indeed, the Japanese word for magazine -- zasshi -- literally means 
"miscellaneous chronicles." But "miscellany" is not a terribly dignified 
word, connoting as it does a hodgepodge of unrelated items. In Buddhism, 
however, zoushiki, or "miscellaneous colors," is a term of praise for 
mandalas and other visual representations of the Buddha-realm. This suggests 
that, if our miscellany is assembled with power and purpose, it will be no 
mere hodgepodge but something of authentic value, even something that can 
unlock the secrets of the cosmos. 


Every issue of a magazine purports to gather together the season's latest 
stories and controversies, just as one gathers from an orchard the season's 
ripest fruit. A good cover brings to the surface the inner power of the 
magazine, offering a taste of the diverse fruits that lie within, waiting to 
be sampled. A magazine is like a living creature, and the rhythm with which 
it materializes on bookstore racks and enters our lives -- quarterly, 
monthly, or weekly -- is its own particular biorhythm. Despite this 
comforting cyclical familiarity, or perhaps precisely because of it, a 
magazine must, to catch the eye of the reader, offer with each issue a fresh 
new face. The cover should convey the aromas of the new season, of the fresh 
fruit within, now ripe to bursting. 


Magazine covers are faces


The notion of the cover as a face relates to the traditional Chinese science 
of physiognomy, the reading of faces to discern human character. The 
underlying premise of physiognomy is that "the part contains the whole," a 
notion that can be found in other practices. Iridology, for example, teaches 
that every part of the body has a corresponding location in the iris of the 
eye, an idea one also finds in systems for reading the ears and the soles of 
the feet. According to Chinese tradition, the face reveals not only 
indicators of the health of a person's various internal organs but also tells 
much about his or her character and way of life.


Before the 1970s, the covers of Japanese magazines were all designed with a 
similar format, in which the title was placed over a single photograph or 
illustration. The effect was something like draping an article of clothing 
over a person's body. I began to wonder if there wasn't some way to display 
the inner substance of the magazine, the essence of that "body," on the 
cover. Rather than literally cover a publication, I wanted to try a new 
approach, which would provide the magazine with an expressive face that 
reflected its soul. My attempts came to fruition in covers for magazines like 
SD and Ginka. 


Magazines are constantly in flux


The publication of a periodical is a process of ceaseless change. The covers 
of conventional magazines, rather than reflecting this fact, seem to ignore 
it. Indeed, the more august its reputation, the more likely a magazine is to 
cling to a design that seeks to evoke dignity through immobility. The title 
logo never changes, nor does the publication's size or even its color scheme. 
The only elements that change from issue to issue are the images on the 
cover, yet even they adhere to the same fixed dimensions. I grew to dislike 
this enforced stability intensely.


To me, it seemed that a magazine by its very nature must change -- like leaves 
with the season, like one's pulse racing in response to exciting news, like 
the emotions that play across our faces. Whether its heart beats in time to a 
weekly, monthly or quarterly rhythm, a magazine is always in flux. 


I decided deliberately to highlight this flux in my design of several 
magazines. I began doing this in 1966 with SD, a monthly whose cover design I 
altered every issue. I radically redesigned the quarterly Ginka every four 
issues -- that is, once a year -- and the monthly Uwasa no Shinso every three 
issues. With SD and Ginka, I varied the typography and the size of the cover 
photos. I frequently put calligraphic script on the cover of Ginka, and 
featured a different style of illustration every month on Uwasa no Shinso. 


The transitions through which the covers of a magazine move should also, when 
viewed over time, express an identifiable personality. Their flux should 
resonate like the biorhythms of a distinct organism. One could say, then, 
that what I was striving to express was an identity that emerges in and 
through the very process of change.


Magazines should reflect an interplay of order and chaos


In my designs, after mixing together the text and images, I like to add, for 
good measure, a dollop of "noise." The effect I seek is one in which images 
and text, while jostling one another, somehow coexist within a single whole. 
I call this the "interplay of order and chaos."


Most publications reflect the conventional wisdom of advertising design, which 
abhors any kind of noise, viewing it as a flaw. But I consider noise a close 
relative of text and pictures. If you take information -- that is, bits and 
pieces of intellectual abstraction without physical form -- and shine a light 
on it, you will see how the reflected light bends and scatters. At one 
extreme of the spectrum, information may crystallize into symbolic elements, 
such as the letters of text. Moving in the other direction, it may acquire 
the amorphous outline of a picture. If you then take imagery to an even more 
abstract level, you get noise. These forms are really just variations along a 
single spectrum. 


Order and chaos on a cover of objet magazine yu ("noise" detail at right) 


I came to this way of thinking through the study of kanji, the Chinese 
characters that make up much of written Japanese. Kanji, which derive from 
ancient pictographs, are complex characters often composed of many strokes. 
If you shift a character just a bit in the direction of its pictographic 
origins, you can readily turn it into an image -- or into noise. The freedom 
and outright wildness of some Chinese and Japanese calligraphy attests to 
these possibilities.


A magazine is a bundle not only of text but also of photos, illustrations, 
diagrams and advertisements. These categories are not always clearly 
demarcated. A title logo may be more pictorial than textual; the magazine may 
contain photorealistic illustrations and imagistic text -- not to mention 
advertisements that pose as feature articles. Different modes of expression 
merge and overlap with one another. They are all part of the same continuum 
of expression -- of text, image and noise. The "interplay of order and chaos" 
is just my way of describing the attempt to give shape to this continuum. 


Magazine designs should surprise


In all my designs, I try to catch the reader off-guard, and I have devised a 
number of strategies for this purpose. I have laid out some covers of 
episteme, Ginka, and Uwasa no Shinso along the angle of the earth's axis, 
which tilts 23.5 degrees. The cover of issue no. 8 of yu emulates the 
maze-like, circular layout of Islamic calligraphy. On one series of magazine 
covers, I created stereovision images to be viewed through 3D glasses. I have 
shrunk text and pictures to microfiche size, and I have intentionally 
misdrawn kanji to evoke a baby's babble. Like the seasonal changes they 
follow, magazines should always offer an element of the unexpected to their 
readers. That has been my primary credo throughout my career.


3D image and "microfiche" on covers of Toshi-Jutaku, a journal of urban 
housing


A Word of Thanks


In 1970 I was typically designing five or six magazines at a time. By 1990, 
this number had risen to 12. As I've noted above, I could not have handled 
this much work -- in addition to designing books and posters -- without a lot 
of help. I assigned some magazines to different members of my staff, who 
managed both to meet our deadlines and to put their own creative stamp on my 
basic ideas. The following designers worked with me on the magazines 
introduced in this online exhibit:

episteme: Suzuki Hitoshi
Ginka: Sato Atsushi
Uwasa no Shinso: Suzuki Hitoshi, Tanimura Akihiko,
 Akazaki Shoichi, Wang Haur-Ger, Sakano Koichi, Shimada Kaoru
Nihon no Bigaku: Tanimura Akihiko, Sato Atsushi
Shizen to Bunka: Akazaki Shoichi, Sato Atsushi

I am grateful to the innovative editors of these magazines, who understood 
what I was trying to do and made my ideas a reality. Given the outlandish 
demands I frequently made of them, the patience of the skilled printers we 
relied on was especially remarkable and deserving of thanks.


Magazine design is, of course, a team effort, a product of the imagination, 
wisdom and skill of many people. To those who have worked with me over the 
years to transform the commonplace medium of the magazine into something 
extraordinary -- a miscellany of the unexpected -- I extend my heartfelt 
gratitude.