Episode 03: Michele Outland, Designer, Bon Appétit, Gather Journal, Nylon, More

Michele Outland has spent her career at some really beautiful magazines. Beautiful ... because she made them that way. Her resume includes stops at Martha Stewart’s Everyday Food, Domino, Nylon, and Bon Appétit, as well as the magazine she created and launched with her good friend, Fiorella Valdesolo: Gather Journal.

Gather, which only published 13 issues, made a powerful impact on the magazine business. In its five-year run, it won a James Beard Award for visual storytelling, an Art Director’s Club Award, and twenty medals from the Society of Publication Designers, including being named “Brand of the Year” in 2015.

Under her leadership, Bon Appétit won the ASME National Magazine Award for Design along with a slew of SPD awards. 

We talked to Michele about the power of internships, her Korean mother’s influence on the way she thinks about food, about how to start a magazine in a post-print world—and when we can expect the return of Gather Journal, the strong female role models who shaped her career, and, of course, pizza.To read the full transcript and view the portfolio, visit Print Is Dead. (Long Live Print!).

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Episode 02: Kurt Andersen, Author and Editor, Spy Magazine, New York, Studio360, more

We’ve always had a thing for magazine launches. They’re filled with drama and melodrama, people behaving with passion and conviction, and people ... misbehaving. Anything to get that first issue onto the stands and into the hands of readers.

Some new ventures seem to sneak in the back door. Who saw Wired or Fast Company coming?

Others are to the manner born, and from the most elite print parents. But, even with that pedigree they never gain traction, never display the scrappiness and experimentation that we’ve come to expect from anything new. (You know who you are).

But then, one day, along comes The Greatest Startup in the History of Magazine Startups. A magazine that dares to mercilessly, and humorously, vilify high society. The one that big time journalists pretend to ignore but were first to the newsstand each month to grab their copy. The one that created packaging conceits: Separated at Birth, Private Lives of Public Enemies, Blurb-o-mat, and Naked City. Plus, the adorable nicknames—“Short-fingered vulgarian”—that persist to this day.

That’s right, we’re talking about Spy.

And in this episode we’ll meet Kurt Andersen who, along with Graydon Carter and Tom Phillips, founded what became an instantaneous cultural phenomenon: Spy magazine. The axis of the publishing world tilted when it hit the stands.

“Spy was the most influential magazine of the 1980s,” the author Dave Eggers wrote. “It definitely changed the whole tone of magazine journalism. It was cruel, brilliant, beautifully-written and perfectly-designed—and feared by all.”

There had never been anything like Spy before. Nothing since has come close.

To read the full transcript and view the portfolio, visit Print Is Dead. (Long Live Print!).

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Episode 01: Roger Black, Designer

Roger Black is a pioneer. His art direction of iconic print brands and high-profile redesigns, his early embrace of digital publishing technology, and his typographic innovations are hallmarks of a 50-year, trailblazing career. 

He’s refined his design mastery at publications ranging from Rolling Stone to Esquire to Newsweek to The New York Times Magazine. He’s written books and started companies. He’s worked for clients on every continent. 

And now, at 73, Black’s focus has shifted to type. More specifically Type Network, a font platform launched in 2016, where he serves as the company’s chairman.

Black’s design legacy not only includes memorable makeovers but also the fundamental need for an underlying reason and purpose behind them, often sophisticated, always functional. Throw in his signature color palette — red, white, and of course, Black — and you’re in business.

All that said, Black preaches that the true DNA of a successful brand identity is its typography. 

We talked to Black about why he left home in the third grade, how an early blunder almost cost him his publishing career, what it felt like to follow in his mother’s footsteps at the New York Times, what he thinks are the five best-executed magazines of all time, and about why he’s always on the move — and where he’s headed next.

To read the full transcript and view the portfolio, visit Print Is Dead. (Long Live Print!).

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