Vogue Paris' hot chill

If any of you are in europe right now, (or your international press stand), I’m sure you’ve taken a look at the latest Vogue Paris issue. For august we have a special London issue with Daria Werbowy photographed by David sims.

Werbowy is wearing an awesome Ralph Lauren Jacket and all in all this cover looks pretty cute. The colors are nice and the model looks great, (though I could’ve done without the nose piercing…). The typography is very messy however, its quite crowded and you are losing any sense of priority on this cover. Everything is sitting really tight and I found it hard to read. I can honestly say though that this cover looks a hundred times better than the U.S and U.K editions, (by saying this I’m merely pointing out that those two look aweful not that this one looks amazing..).

The only thing that bothered me was the whole theme of this issue. As I mentioned this is a special London edition, and apparently to us french people, a London edition means winter style and cold photoshoots. It seems a bit chilly for an august issue which is disappointing but clearly you can’t have everything (trying sure wouldn’t kill you though…).

What's This Font 1.2 - VOGUE Paris

Greetings designers and type geeks. It's time for a What's This Font post and this time we'll be looking at Vogue Paris. Definitely an upgrade on Vogue U.S if you ask me. There are lots of interesting things in there, especially layout and font wise. The first font we will  be looking at is the font used on the cover. On the one hand you have the VOGUE logo which is a slightly altered version of Didot (T1) HTF M42 Medium (who knew right?) and on the other we have a mix of Miller Banner light, roman and semi bold for the headlines. 

I don't find there is much to say on the Vogue logo itself, it's pretty iconic and speaks for itself so for now I will just focus on the use of Miller which was designed by Matthew Carter and Richard Lipton in 2010. The first time I discovered Miller I was working as an intern at Victoria's Secret and it was one of the fonts they used the most. You would think I would have recognized it but the way Vogue uses it is so different that to me it looked like a completely different font. It's modern yet has got all the right curves. It works very well for them and all in all it's quite a gorgeous typeface. Not only that but the price range is quite reasonable, you can find Miller Banner here.

Now despite all these good aspects this font does have a major flaw which comes to light in a more obvious way as you flip through the pages and Vogue Paris doesn't seem to have noticed it: readability. If this reads well on the cover I'm afraid the same thing can't be said on the inside of the magazine. That is mostly due to the layouts, a lot of cramped text everywhere whether it be big or small, not the smartest choice. Vogue also decided they wanted a customized version of Miller specially designed for them and that's how they ended up with...let's say interesting, alternates.

While some of the alternates work quite well and give the page a little more beauty and vogue, one in particular is just plain weird. You can guess from looking below, it's the B. It looks like a J and a B stuck together and reads really weird. No one's perfect right?

Vogue UK december redesign

Here is a 30 minute redesign of VOGUE UK's December 2012 cover, using the same copy and basic layout, only adjusting the main color and of course changing the photo.

SO as I have done before, here is a 30 minute redesign of Vogue UK's december 2012 cover using a picture from inside of this issue to give you an idea of how this could have been way more interesting (and pop since this was clearly what they were aiming for...).I am using pretty much the first typeface that I stumbld across in my font library for this as the type isn't the focus here. I don't know about you but I absolutely cannot tell that these two pictures are of the same woman...

U.K Vogue bodge?

Like pretty much everyone this year, I went to see the hunger games and loved Jennifer Lawrence. She's been on quite a few covers this past year so let's check this one out shall we?

Like always I'm going to start with the photography. It's quite a beautiful shot of Lawrence wearing a gorgeous Dolce & Gabbana silver and black dress.It's a great image but unfortunately nothing groundbreaking. You would expect something more amazing coming from Vogue.

Design wise it's looking up from the last issue (see previous article) but still, nothing groundbreaking here either. The color palette is very nice, that coral/red color is beautiful and complements the image well. So it's easy on the eyes BUT then again the type placement is a bit off to me. There is a lot of copy competing with each other but I think what is actually bothering more than that is the way the O of the logo is place above Lawrence's head. It's not bringing anything to the cover and the more I look at it the more it's annoying the crap out of me and it looks like a mistake more than something on purpose. Someone probably went : "oh my god this is going to look amazing"and it somehow made it to print that way. Though this would have worked if her hair had been visible inside the O.

All and all not a terrible cover but not an amazing one either. It's nice to look at and I know I'm probably being harsh but Vogue has to be held to the highest standards and in my honest opinion they can do much better.

Harper's Bazaar's sexy October

Harper's Bazaar U.S hasn't always been the sexy thing it is now and has definitely
been evolving towards something great.

The new look appeared early on in 2012 (it seems they had been tweaking the cover around for a while) and the new look knocks it out of the park. I had never really paid attention to it before that, I didn't find the general design either appealing or interesting. But the last couple issues since this big change have been great and we couldn't ask for more, or could we?

As a graphic designer I have a very critical eye and looking at any cover of any publication, there is always a way to make something better. Harper's Bazaar still has some way to go before it looks absolutely amazing but so far they definitely have been going to right direction. The photography, which is absolutely perfect, and very simple color palettes are dead on and very attractive (doesn't Kate Hudson look stunning?). These are a perfect example of a great blend between the design and the photography, they don't compete and they don't clash, way to go Harper's Bazaar, keep 'em coming. Meanwhile below is a little compilation of their awesome new covers. (the Gwen Stefani one is to die for right?)

more about the new look here

Vogue U.K: not even trying

OK so I'm going to start with a "what the heck is going on with Vogue U.K" comment:
What the heck is going on with Vogue U.K?? 

At the beginning of the year they came up with gorgeous covers, we couldn't have asked anything more, from the photography to the typography, everything was there to please. You look at both the covers above now and see what I mean. It seems like our U.K friends are leaning towards the American look font wise (which is ,I'm not even sorry to say, not good):

The photography which they usually nail is not amazing and I'm pretty sure the problem with that lies with the terrible clash between the color scheme of Kristen and the pink they used for the type.Yes I have been made aware it's breast cancer month and the color change is a yearly thing (which is great dont get me wrong), what I am trying to point out however is they could have have done something photography wise to make this easier on the eyes. U.S Vogue did it very well, why couldn't British Vogue do the same?

I'd also like to know what is up with that bold and huge sans serif typeface? (that's Nobel bold in case you'd want to know...). Big no no. The typeface they had on the june cover was so sexy that seeing this huge change just makes me refuse to buy this issue. YES, it IS all about the cover, because the cover is the first thing you see and if that's not good well the inside can't have done much better...(not that i wont flip through the issue when I get a chance but right now I'm just not up to being disappointed some more.) To sum up this terrible tragedy, this cover is not a victory for the bristish version of the magazine. ELLE U.S did it better on their June cover and it wasn't even what we can even call a good cover. (see below)

P.S. I must say Nobel Bold is a fine font it's just not Vogue material, seriously, the french made their own gorgeous Vogue font; what are you waiting for?