The Unspectacular

An interesting thing seems to be happening to magazines (and architecture) over in Germany (& around the Netherlands). You could call it ‘Unspectacular’. Whereas in architecture what’s going on is seen as a reaction against the often chaotic approach post-modernism has plastered over recent architecture (see ‘Unspectacular Architecture’ in the latest issue of A10 [a10.eu/14]), in terms of magazine design, it could be seen as a reaction against the cheap, throwaway celebrity culture that currently pervades magazine stands around the world from New York to Copenhagen and beyond.

Spex [spex.de] is probably best known as Germany’s progressive music and youth culture magazine. Editorially, they are seen as rowdy upstarts in German magazine publishing due, in part, to their roots in the punk and new wave scene in the early 1980s. The design of the magazine stumbled along through the 90s, not really pushing any particular buttons, emerging in 2000 with a fresh, new look and experimental attitude that seemed to be doing well for the magazine. 7 years on and with a change in location (from Berlin back to where the magazine first started) and therefore a change in editorial team Spex has just had another make-over and, compared to previous issues, it’s kind of dry. A lot of the visual ticks and illustrative elements have been striped out in favour of authoritative typography and stark imagery. For a music and youth culture magazine it’s all looking a little joyless…

brand eins [brandeins.de] is what it does and has been hugely influential because of their straight forward approach to the design of the magazine and their expressive and quirky imagery. For a magazine whose key interest lies in Economics, they do a pretty cool series of covers too. brand eins recently underwent a bit of a nip and tuck, knocking even more of the (spartan) graphic elements out of the layouts. Possibly the precursor to the cult of the ‘Unspectacular’.

PC Professionell [testticker.de/pcpro] is another recent makeover of an established German magazine. If you follow any of the well-known design blogs, you would have seen the title popping up quite a bit lately, largely because of the involvement of Erik Spiekermann [spiekermann.com], the German graphic design superstar who is credited with designing the font that will forever define the 1990s, FF Meta [typophile.com/wiki] and has recently helped rebrand the German public transport system, Die Bahn [spiekermannpartners.com]. There’s no doubting it’s a vast improvement on the original (it wouldn’t be hard) but by restricting colour variation (the magazine uses a strict palette of red, grey and black) and graphic elements, the magazine starts feeling a bit like a textbook. It’s certainly nice and clean now, but also kind of monotonous.

It’s weird, I don’t think the general public has ever been that comfortable with the trashy mags that fill the newsagents racks today, it’s lazy publishing really, hence the need to present them as candy bars i.e. cheap, colourful and throwaway, not a meal, not even a snack, just something to chew on for a bit and then forget about until you get the urge again. One technique to avoid falling into this category seems to have been to try and push your product up-market or make it more ‘niche-y’. This ‘cult of the unspectacular’ takes a completely different tack. Something only one U.K. based magazine seems to have picked up on at the moment. Stand up, Monocle [monoclemagazine.com].