1883 Magazine
Contributed by Jay Mitchell of London-based 1883 Magazine.
The editor (my sister) and I started 1883 Magazine in May 2010 with the idea to showcase and promote the most innovative new talent around. We started with fashion and have since brought in the world of music, film and the arts.
What began as a small fashion publication centred in-and-around London has now evolved into an internationally distributed magazine. We are stocked in WHSmith and Urban Outfitters nationwide, in independent stores across Europe and from this Monday will be in Barnes & Noble and Borders in the United States.
When coming up with our brand identity it was essential that it would jump out amongst the competitive fashion/culture magazine market. We came up with the name 1883 based on three reasons.
Firstly 1883 is the year that Coco Chanel was born. When her designs hit the market they were fresh, pushed boundaries, and were often controversial. She was the first designer to make trousers for women and make it mainstream, back then that was a ground breaking idea. We want to take these philosophies and put them in our brand, focusing on new, undiscovered talent, while wanting to raise a few eyebrows with our content and design direction.
Secondly the use of a number as a name immediately creates a mystery, and people ask the question, “What is 1883?”
Thirdly the number is not at first glance related to fashion which makes it adaptable allowing us to bring in music, film, and the arts which we have done for our current and next issue.
The design had to be strong, simple, timeless, able to appeal to the female and male market, and be easily adaptable across different forms of media. Taking inspiration with what Apple do, I wanted it to be immediately recognizable without needing the word “magazine” below it.
If you look closely enough you will see a dot of gold in the logo, this was a last minute design idea. Its a company secret, but I feel it adds another level of mystery.
We printed with Wyndeham at their Portsmouth plant.
The cover was sheet fed, 4-colour process on 300gsm Woodfree gloss.
The inside pages were print web, 4-colour process on 100gsm Woodfree gloss.
—
Visit the 1883 Magazine website. 1883 on Twitter, and on Facebook.
7 comments on “1883 Magazine”
Leave your thoughts
All comments are moderated, and should be respectful of other voices in the discussion. Comments may be edited or deleted if the moderator doesn't like the cut of your jib.
it looks great, but the concept seems really empty. aside from “make it pretty,” there’s really no substance to the brand. the gold dot was “a last minute design idea,” which says it all right there. it’s last minute, so it’s completely random.
There are just too many things that turn me off to this identity. I suppose it’s part of the mystery and charm of the logo, but the stretched 8 bothers me. The compressed type just seems busy and messy, and doesn’t mesh well with the monospaced type on their website. Seems like a bunch of “fahsion-y” tropes mashed together.
Usually the stuff of ID is really good, but this seems below par.
I have to agree with Tyler and Ian here, this isn’t the best design I’ve seen, and the stretched 8 really bothers me (in my rules, type should NEVER be stretched. Period.), and the compressed type seems out of place or almost unneeded. The last thing I’d expect is compressed type, it doesn’t fit in as well with the logo and other elements.
But, I’ll say this, it IS a design that has surprised me, and that’s what we need in today’s design scene, we need something new, different, original and surprising, and this has ticked those boxes for me.
That said it’s not a design I’m too happy with, but I guess that’s my opinion.
I happened to purchase a copy of the magazine at my local WHSmiths and was actually quite surprised by the design of the magazine in its entirety. After fumbling through, my reaction was quite similar to that of Louis’. They are definitely making a design statement and don’t seem to follow the motif of conventional magazines I ordinarily go for. In that respect I think the logo fits. Standards and restrictions often stunt my own creativity so I can appreciate it. I will say the written bit on it’s conception could’ve been a bit more thought out though.
It’s good enough, but I just feel a bit ‘bleuurrgggh’ about it. Like I have little feeling for it either way.
It feels dull in some way, and the scramble of shapes almost hurts my eyes. Feels a bit messy.
It’s classic fashion designing – where the clothes are key, the graphic design is so often below par. It has the distinct feel of someone who doesn’t understand type. It can be fine to stretch, compress and obscure, but only when you know what you are doing, and why. If you can’t answer why (which it appears he can’t) then you know the branding must be failing. Ignoring rules is not an acceptable excuse when I doubt they are understood in the first place. These are all beginners mistakes.
Agreed. Also could have done something more interesting with the cover image, or used a different image. Also, just saying ‘magazine’ suggests that your readers have never seen a magazine before, or that you need to push the fact that this is a magazine. Call it a ‘Fashion Magazine’ or ‘Culture magazine’, something a little more descriptive or leave it out entirely.