A perfect visual idea:
The Daily Heller‘s unofficial, unsolicited award for the most effective visual concept I have ever seen for a magazine, book or record cover, poster or brochure, goes to The Guardian Weekly for its May 2019 issue “Age of Rage,” designed by Tomato Košir.
I asked Košir to calmly explain how the cover was conceived.
“I was approached by Chris Clarke and Steven Gregor, designer,” to create this topical supplement, he says. “The subject was ‘anger,’ and the brief was very straightforward: to communicate it in the broadest possible sense since the whole supplement is devoted to the subject on different levels. I sent them the first proposal titled ‘Anger,’ and explained my wish that they send me the last version of [the magazine’s] Page 3, since it was important that the illusion [of the crumpled page be] as real as possible. It was accepted only with a correction of color.”
“I must admit I was skeptical, since crumpled white paper gives a higher contrast modulation and the uncoated Guardian Weekly‘s paper has its limits of color spectrum, he notes. “There is a fine margin whenever we can achieve the full suspense with this idea, and details like that are crucial. Also, I had to print the cover in the highest possible resolution so we wouldn’t get a moire. Since that was only possible to achieve on bulky photo paper, the crumpling had to be done less spontaneous and in a more controlled way.”
“After the title was change to Age of Rage, I had only two remaining tasks,” Košir explains. “One, to get the proper balance of legibility and crumples that would still convey rage without reading the title and with as much of Page 3 to remain seen. Two, build the best possible composite of vectors and ultra-resolution photo so we would get as little rasterized text as possible. This was crucial to the the final outcome.”
Pisses me off, that it went through without a hitch. I’d never get that accomplished. Damn it!
Credits: Chris Clarke, deputy creative director at Guardian News & Media, and Steven Gregor, designer