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The Global Issue Cover
Credits: Photo illustration by Matthew Pillsbury for The New York Times. Prop stylist: Emily Mullin. Globes by Replogle Globes Partners LLC.
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Editor’s note:
In an era where magazines are dying by the dozens, it is refreshing to
witness the birth—or in this case—the rebirth of any decent publication,
especially one with the flair of The New York Times Magazine.
To celebrate the relaunch here is a behind the scenes
essay by NYT Mag editor Jake Silverstein, which appeared yesterday worldwide.
Welcome to
the new New York Times Magazine. For
the past four months, as we’ve been putting out the magazine you read every
weekend, we’ve also
been busying ourselves behind
the scenes, crafting something new and different. It is as if we have been
bidding our dinner guests adieu each week, busing the dessert plates and then
hurrying out to the garage to tinker with our strange creation under a
flickering bulb.
We have used the hammer and
the tongs but perhaps not the blowtorch; we sought to manufacture a magazine
that would be unusual, surprising and original but not wholly unfamiliar. It
would be a clear descendant of its line.
This magazine is 119 years
old; nearly four million people read it in print every weekend. It did not need
to be dismantled, sawed into pieces or drilled full of holes. Instead, we have
set out to honor the shape of the magazine as it has been, while creating
something that will, we hope, strike you as a version you have never read
before.
To this end we have made many
alterations. You will find new concepts for columns, new writers, new ideas
about how to compose headlines, new typefaces, new page designs in print and
online, new ideas about the relationship between print and digital and,
animating it all, a new spirit of inquiry that is both subversive and sincere.
(You will also find, in this Sunday’s print edition, more pages of advertising
than in any issue since October 2007.)
In the interest of being
clear about what we have done, this letter will introduce you to some of the
most notable changes. But first, a word on the design itself.
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| From left: Matt Willey (art director); Stacey Baker (associate photo editor); Kathy Ryan (director of photography); Joanna Milter (deputy photo editor, at computer); Gail Bichler (design director); Jake Silverstein (editor in chief) reviewing cover options for the Feb. 22 Global Issue. Credit David La Spina/The New York Times |
The redesign was led by our
design director, Gail Bichler, a 10-year veteran of The Times, along with our
art director, Matt Willey. They worked closely with the talented designer Anton
Ioukhnovets, who created the look and feel of these pages. Gail and Matt also
oversaw the creation of an entire suite of typefaces.
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| Gail Bichler |
Not a single letter in this
relaunch issue has ever seen the light of day. They are infants; treat them
gently. Gail also had the magazine’s logo redrawn by the typographer Matthew
Carter. It is a similar treatment, of course, but as you can see, the new logo
is more modern, more graciously spaced.
It also has a cousin, a
short-form logo, which we’ll be using in smaller and more casual settings like
social media.
I will resist the impulse to
lavish praise on Gail’s efforts, in the interest of letting you discover for
yourself what she has accomplished.
Now, on to some of the new
pages:
First Words: This column
opens the magazine each week with a prolonged consideration of a telling word
or phrase. A small group of writers will trade off in this slot, among them
Virginia Heffernan, Colson Whitehead, Amanda Hess and Michael Pollan.
Search Results: Twice a
month, the great and farseeing Jenna Wortham will use this space for a dispatch
from Internet culture, which, let’s be honest, is the most vital engine of
culture today.
The Ethicists: This page,
which has been in existence since 1999, has undergone the most radical
overhaul: We have reimagined it as a podcast. On their weekly show, produced
with our friends at Slate, our three-ethicist panel of Kenji Yoshino, Amy Bloom
and Jack Shafer will discuss and debate the best way to solve readers’ ethical
quandaries. In print and online, you’ll be able to read an edited excerpt from
that conversation.
The Ons: In a monthly
rotation, four different critics will take up four different subjects — Teju
Cole on photography (which is featured this week); Adam Davidson on money; Troy
Patterson on clothing; and Helen Macdonald on nature. Each of them can also be
found continuing their studies of these subjects throughout the month online.
Poem: We will now be running
a poem every week. Poetry is often seen as a quaint preoccupation, but we
believe it is a vital experience, particularly when published within a
newspaper, where the clamor of pressing timely items calls for the counterpoint
of a more timeless note. Our poems will be selected and introduced each week by
Natasha Trethewey, a former U.S. poet laureate and a professor at Emory
University, who will make her picks from recent or forthcoming books.
Last format change made the
magazine significantly harder to read. Let's hope this one goes the other way.
Letter of Recommendation: A
blast of enthusiasm, a gleeful yawp of praise for something, anything, that the
writer feels compelled to endorse. This week, Sam Anderson lends his support to
Fleetwood Mac’s “Tusk”; future L.O.R.s will applaud Turner Classic Movies and
La Croix seltzer. (I am partial to all three.)
Lives: We’ve turned Lives
from a column that features mostly written accounts to one that features mostly
accounts told to a reporter. This will enable us to showcase a wider variety of
lives from a wider range of nations and backgrounds.
Just as crucial to this
latest reimagining of The New York Times
Magazine as the print makeover is the idea that it shouldn’t be confined to
print. In the next year, you’ll be seeing more of us outside the bundle that
lands on your doorstep on weekend mornings. You’ll be able to find us on the
daily web, in your earbuds during your morning commute, on social media and
onstage.
This isn’t an obligatory
exercise in multiplatform brand leveraging, as the marketing types might put
it, or the beginning of our descent into soul-deadening content farming. (To be
honest, we grimace a little even saying the word “content.” When was the last
time you said, “I can’t wait to read this Sunday’s content”?) We love the print
Times Magazine as much as you do, but we also love listening to podcasts,
arguing on Twitter and wandering from link to link through the ever-expanding
universe of online writing. And we’re looking forward to more fully joining
that conversation.
Starting this week, our
website will feature regular online-only writing and photography. We admit it:
We’re late to this party. But we plan on making up for lost time. Expect to see
our regular columnists in the daily online conversation, along with many
regular contributors, including Emily Bazelon, Jay Caspian Kang, Sam Anderson,
Mark Leibovich, Julia Ioffe, Susan Dominus and Jim Rutenberg. We’ll also run
extended photo essays and Web-only galleries curated by our photo editors.
As for the big feature
stories from our print magazine, those will look better than they ever have
online, too, with screen-busting photography and design flourishes that will
bring the online reading experience — on your laptop, phone or tablet — closer
to the print magazine. We’ll also continue to experiment with the kind of bold
multimedia production we’ve explored in the past year through stories like Jeff
Himmelman’s “A Game of Shark and Minnow” and John Jeremiah Sullivan’s “The
Ballad of Geeshie and Elvie.”
Finally, later this year,
we’ll be beginning a regular series of evenings with The Times Magazine, events
here in New York City at which some of the best stories and subjects from our
pages come to life. But we’ll also be bringing The Times Magazine to stages
around the country, with gatherings that celebrate some of our special issues.
In June, our Design and Technology Issue will furnish the theme for a
conference in San Francisco; in October, our Culture Issue will become a
Culture Festival in New York; and in December, our Great Performers Issue will
make its debut with a premiere screening and conversation in Los Angeles.
This list by no means covers
all of the changes that have been made; over the next month, even more new
pages and projects will roll out of the garage. But this will suffice as an
introduction to our ambitions.
Typefaces by Henrik Kubel
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