A Slight Adjustment

Yes, the issue you hold in your hand is smaller than the one you’re used to reading. It’s one of the many adjustments we’ve needed to make in this new economy. In publishing, a tough business climate has led to the trimming of the New York Times Magazine in June, Print magazine in August, and now Metropolis in September. For us, the first decision in this period of change was to keep the old proportions of the magazine, which, we hoped, would help maintain its “objectness”—that special presence exuded by any unique product. What followed was a series of design and editorial decisions to refine the navigation system in order to aid the reader experience.

We’re happy to report that what you see here is evidence of a seamless, collegial collaboration. We had confidence that this team was capable of making sure that Metropolis lives up to its reputation for thorough coverage presented by imaginative design. More important, we all saw the change as an opportunity to make a better magazine.

The work began in early June with discussions about what worked in the old format and what needed improvement. A month later, we were looking at the direction the design would take. Sprinkled throughout the front of the maga­zine, you’ll notice factoid blocks, a quick way of getting into the who, what, and where of a story while letting the narrative do its job. These pages are designed to live next to advertising. And since editorial and advertising have distinct identities, both sides welcomed a device to separate the two. We used to have a patterned “fence”; now we have a simplified frame that lifts the editorial content off the page.

Color further aids navigation. Each department is identified with a distinct color signaled in the table of contents, where you’ll see colored lines near each story to indicate its length. (For instance, one line equals one spread, or two pages, in the features section.) The first minicontents page, which kicks off our Observed section, now contains a map of the world, showing where our stories come from—and underlining that Metropolis covers design with a worldly perspective.

When you get to the features section, the first page is now another full-fledged minicontents page, showing you what follows. And as you turn the pages, you’ll note some new information added at the bottom. In addition to the usual page numbers and issue date, you’ll now see story titles and our Web address, which is printed in blue on pages linking to content that can only be found online.

But what you’ll be most happy about—just as we are—is that the smaller pages have plenty of white space, so each story can breathe. To avoid a cramped feeling, there was some serious editing of what would appear on the page; the question of how fewer, bigger pictures could tell the full story was skillfully negotiated. And because we like sidebars—relevant, shorter stories that stand on their own but add to the richness of the main narrative—we needed a new solution. Take a look at the Emilio Ambasz story to see our integrated approach to sidebar design. We think it works particularly well with this piece, which goes deeply into the reclusive designer’s poetic aesthetics. You’ll also note that the outside margins—the seventh column—are sometimes used for factoids related to the story. Watch us create unique solutions for sidebars—in fact, watch us make a better magazine. Also, note the typeface: you’re experiencing the very readable Sentinel (from Hoefler & Frere-Jones), an improvement over the old Bodoni. This serious font is paired with Scout (from the Font Bureau), which is lively and fun as a display type.

Every story has a hero; ours are Criswell Lappin and his design team, Dungjai Pungauthaikan and Lisa Maione. Criswell immediately saw the size change as a design challenge, rallying his department—all of us, really—around the job ahead. He even called in his own focus group of top minds: some 20 designers who have created memorable Metropolis covers. Their advice: keep the original, uncropped logo—tall, bold, skyscraperlike—which affirms our identity and brand.

This redesign is our answer to the new economy. It’s lean, focused, improved, and ready to take on new challenges. As we all reflect on what we do and how we do it, how to fix the things that are marginally effec­tive, and how to strive continually for excellence and relevance, we need collaborative teams with designers at the center as creative problem-solvers. It’s a lesson that every business needs to learn for itself.