Hasta La Ideas

“Please put your shirt back on.” Rarely does an art director have cause to utter these words while on the job—and rarer still when the job in question is a Maxim photoshoot with starlet Olivia Wilde—but it’s all in a day’s work for Dirk Barnett. The editorial branding pro, who earned an undergraduate degree in journalism before finding his calling on the art and photo side of the masthead, moved from Maxim to Lucky last fall, but put in only a few days at Conde Nast HQ before Tina Brown wooed him to her newly formed “NewsBeast,” the Newsweek Daily Beast Company. Since then, Barnett and his team have rolled out a redesign (the eighth major newsstand title he’s overhauled), a new logo, and a special “Osama Is Dead” issue, all the while making images and photojournalism more prominent in the magazine. Now they’re working their magic on the Newsweek and Daily Beast websites. We caught up with Barnett after his presentation at Friday’s ABSTRACT Conference to ask him seven questions.

Barnett’s design work for Blender and Play: The New York Times Sports Magazine

1. What has been your best or most memorable design-related encounter?
When I was a young designer at Entertainment Weekly in ‘97, I was working on a story about Van Morrison, and we were using one of Anton Corbijn’s portraits from the 80’s. Photo editor Michelle Romero knew I was a huge Corbijn fan, and as I was designing the opener, she ninja’ed me and brought in Anton to take a look at the layout. My jaw dropped and he started telling stories about Van, etc. It was a fantastic early career moment that always sticks with me.

2. What is your greatest graphic design pet peeve?
Laziness

3. What do you consider your proudest design moment?
Pulling off Newsweek’s Osama bin Laden special issue in 36 hours.

4. You were among the design star-studded list of presenters at the ABSTRACT Conference. For those who couldn’t make it to Maine, what did you talk about?
At ABSTRACT, I talked the conference attendees through “a day in the life” of what it means—and takes—to art direct, conceptualize, and design a news weekly magazine in 2011. Looking through the lens of Newsweek’s recent redesign, I walked through how we dealt with the Japan earthquake and tsunami disasters and bin Laden’s death.
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“Much of what we have known as designers has suddenly shifted,” says Luke Hayman. “However, we still have the ability to establish identity, and to communicate and engage through our design tools.” A partner at Pentagram, Hayman is something of a world champion in establishing identity, communicating, and engaging, whether on behalf of New York magazine (which he famously overhauled as design director) or the Khaleej Times, a Dubai broadsheet. Other publications that have enjoyed a visual rebirth at the hands of Hayman include TIME, Consumer Reports, and the Atlantic. This afternoon, he’ll take the stage at the ABSTRACT Conference in Portland, Maine, to lead a session entitled “Identity Crisis?” We took the interrogative hint and asked Hayman to answer our seven questions.

1. Can you give us a sneak preview of your ABSTRACT Conference presentation?
I’ll be talking about the importance of finding and establishing identity for a publication. What makes up the DNA of a magazine and how can it be expressed in rich, lasting way.

2. What is your greatest graphic design/publication design pet peeve?
Thoughtless stealing…as opposed to thoughtful ‘borrowing’!

3. What has been your most memorable design-related encounter?
George Lois calling to give his opinion on the cover of the first issue of New York magazine we did. He didn’t like it!

4. What do you consider your proudest design moment?
Joining Pentagram.

5. What’s on your summer reading list?
I’m on a Lee Child binge: guilty pleasure/escapism.
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Oprah may have declared the iPad one of her Favorite Things and gifted hundreds of the sleek slabs to members of her studio audience, but another famous first name’s media and retail empire has really put the device through its paces: Martha. And the Good Things keep coming: yesterday saw the launch of two new Martha apps (Whole Living Smoothies and an updated version of Martha’s Everyday Food), and the Society of Publication Designers recently declared Martha Stewart Living‘s “Boundless Beauty” the winner of its inaugural Tablet App of the Year award. The special iPad-based issue of the magazine includes an 180-degree virtual tour of Stewart’s peony garden (how many of the 22 varieties can you spot?), tips for planning a bubble-themed party that really pops, and a design showdown between decorating editors Kevin Sharkey and Rebecca Robertson. Accepting on behalf of Team Martha was Gael Towey, Chief Creative and Editorial Director for Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia. Having overseen the company’s design and creative teams since its inception 20 years ago, Towey has worked to develop six different magazine titles and also left her distinctive stamp of classically elegant cool on MSLO’s product design, marketing, and packaging launches (including five different lines of paint!). On Friday, she’ll lead a session at the ABSTRACT Conference entitled “Magazine Brand as Platform for Development,” which we thought was the perfect platform for a quick interview.

Good Eggs Living’s Egg Dyeing 101 App (Photos: Marci McGoldrick)

1. You’ll be presenting this Friday at the ABSTRACT Conference in Portland, Maine. Can you give us a sneak preview of your talk?
I will be talking about building the Martha Stewart brand, the special magazine issue I’m currently working on about our first 20 years of “really” living, our magazine identity, and how content informs everything we do from merchandising to building new apps and digital magazines.

2. What is your greatest graphic design/publication design pet peeve?
Gratuitous design with no real relationship to the meaning or purpose of the story.

3. What do you consider your best or most memorable design-related encounter?
Meeting my husband, Stephen Doyle, in my office 24 years ago. I was looking for a someone to design Martha’s wedding book. How ironic, wrong designer for weddings…right husband.

4. What is your proudest design moment?
Publishing our first issue of Martha Stewart Living 20 years ago this year, and creating our first digital issue for the iPad last year.
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While we knew back in March that Marc Jacobs was once again in the running for this year’s Council of Fashion Designers of America‘s award for Womenswear Designer of the Year (something he won last year, as well as in 1997 and 1992), he’s likely going to go home happy regardless of another win or not. At tonight’s ceremony, held at Lincoln Center and hosted by Anderson Cooper, Jacobs is set to receive the CFDA’s lifetime achievement award, handed to him by Sofia Coppola, just one of the estimated ten million famous people who are sure to be in attendance. Jacobs told the AP, “It’s crazy. I mean, I have a lot more to do. ‘Achievement’ sounds final. I’d like to call it ‘Lifetime of achievement — and for what’s left to achieve.’ I have no intention of slowing down. I don’t rest anyway.” Personally speaking, we’re really hoping that, when he gets up to receive the award tonight, he calls out Justin Bieber for copying Jacob’s bottle design for the singer’s new perfume, but from the reports last week when that extremely important controversy flared up, Jacobs didn’t seem too bent out of shape about it, so we’re not going to hold our collective breaths.

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With the second section of the High Line officially opening today (trendy bar and all), there’s a touch of bittersweet-ness sure to be affecting the Friends of the High Line organization. This week, the group announced the departure of its in-house curator, Lauren Ross, who will be leaving for greener pastures on far less elevated ground, as she takes over as the curator of modern and contemporary art at the Philbrook Museum in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Sure, it might not be as fashionable as New York, but at least they also have ample gardens to wander through. Here’s a bit about Ross’ accomplishments while working with the High Line:

In the past two years, Lauren has played an integral role in developing the arts program. Some of the projects she brought to the High Line include a sculpture by Valerie Hegarty, Richard Galpin‘s interactive sculpture/viewer, a photography/performance project by Demetrius Oliver, and Kim Beck‘s rooftop sculptures, among others. Lauren will stay at the High Line through mid-June to oversee the debut of new works by Sarah Sze, Julianne Swartz, and the re-creation of Roof Piece, the seminal dance performance by Trisha Brown Dance Company.

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