Hasta La Ideas

It’s all systems grow at Fast Company, which today announced a slate of new hires (remember those?). Taking over at the creative helm of the magazine, which just published its 150th issue (pictured), will be Florian Bachleda, who replaces outgoing art director Dean Markadakis, while Leslie dela Vega has been appointed photography director, replacing Meghan Hurley. Bachleda and dela Vega start at Fast Company on November 8. Other recent additions to the masthead include senior editor Nancy Cook from Newsweek and staff editor Emily Biuso from The New York Times Magazine.

A former president of the Society of Publication Designers, Bachleda served as creative director of titles including Latina and Vibe after honing his art directing chops at everywhere from Entertainment Weekly to McKinsey & Company. His own design firm, FB Design, has done work for clients including Condé Nast, Hearst, and The New York Times. Dela Vega comes to Fast Company from Essence, where she was director of photography. She previously spent three years as national photo editor for Time and served as deputy photo editor at Teen People. And all roads lead back to Vibe, where dela Vega was photo director alongside Bachleda: the duo’s June 2006 Busta Rhymes cover earned Best Celebrity Cover honors from the American Society of Magazine Editors. What design/business world figure(s) would you like to see get silenced via duct tape on a future Fast Company cover? (You know Philippe Starck would be into it.) We’re sure they welcome your suggestions.

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A good creative director is hard to find—and apparently even harder to keep—and two Condé Nast titles suddenly find themselves in need of new ones. Visual wizard Jody Quon has abruptly resigned from W after creatively leading just three issues (including November’s “Art Issue,” which digitally draped the very un-W Kim Kardashian in the signature red-backed Futura bold italic phrases of artist Barbara Kruger, who deserves better).

“It was a mutual decision and her position won’t be filled,” a W spokesperson told The Daily, which also notes that the depature makes design director Joseph Logan the magazine’s top creative. In April, W editor-in-chief Stefano Tonchi stole Quon from New York, where she was photo director. “I see her as somebody who cares as much about the cover of a magazine as the last page of a magazine, somebody who gives as much attention to the well features as to the little things that happen in front of the book,” Tonchi said upon announcing Quon’s appointment.

Condé’s other loss in the creative director department comes as less of a shock. Scott “iPad Whisperer” Dadich, the widely lauded and heavily laureled creative director of Wired (which is also trying its hand at naked covers for November), has resigned from the magazine. He’ll now devote his full attention to position as executive director of digital-magazine development at Condé, according a recent report from WWD. Dadich began his new corporate role in July and has been commuting between Wired‘s San Francisco HQ and the New York City offices of Condé Nast ever since. Got hot gossip on who might step up to fill Dadich’s giant, tech-savvy shoes? Drop us an e-mail.

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Time for some design inspiration: legendary art director Arthur Hochstein will visit the Society of Publication Designers (SPD) next Wednesday for what should be a fascinating discussion of “thinking inside the (red) box.” He’ll discuss his 15-year career at the creative helm of Time, where he was responsible for creating more than 1,000 momentous, funny, pointed, provocative, intelligent, and highly creative red-limned covers. The talk, part of the SPD Designers Speakeasy speakers series (try saying that five times fast!), will touch on Hochstein’s greatest hits, worst flops, and some personal favorite cover designs that never made it to newsstands. “We think this is going to be a great evening of behind-the-scenes magazine-making learning,” SPD Designers Speakeasy chairperson Robert Newman tells us. “It’s a rare chance to get an inside glimpse at the creation of one of publishing’s most iconic spaces: the Time magazine cover.” The event will be held in New York City at the Helen Mills Theatre (137-139 West 26th Street). Doors open at 6:30 p.m. Get the full scoop and reserve tickets here. Not in NYC? Read Hochstein’s descriptions of his 15 favorite Time covers—including the one known in-house as “The Elephant’s Ass Cover”—in this post on SPD’s “Grids” blog.

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Veranda, now under the inspired editorial lead of Dara Caponigro (who tomorrow morning will moderate a panel discussion on “the value of quality” at New York’s D&D Building), last week celebrated the winners of its 2010 Art of Design Awards with an Antony Todd-designed gala at the Hearst Tower. And kudos to Veranda for donating a portion of the evening’s proceeds to our boundlessly creative friends at The Alpha Workshops. Now in their second year, the magazine’s Art of Design Awards “honor trailblazers forging paths in the design industry with work that is both innovative and timeless.” The 2010 winners are Paul Wiseman (interior design), Bernie de Le Cuona (fabric design), Gil Schafer (architecture), The Rug Company founders Suzanne and Christopher Sharp (accessories and furniture), Nancy Goslee Power (garden design), and Alessio Boschi for Autore (jewelry design). All of them are featured in the October issue of Veranda. “The world is craving authenticity right now—things that are thoughtful and well executed,” said Caponigro. “By looking both backward and forward, the Art of Design Award winners prove that good classic design is anything but boring.” Nominated by leaders in the decor and design worlds, the winners were selected by a judging panel that included fashion designer Oscar de la Renta, architect Peter Pennoyer, designer Rose Tarlow, and David McFadden, chief curator of the Museum of Arts and Design.

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