metal meltdown of high design

Jesse Marinoff Reyes ( Jesse Marinoff Reyes Design, Maplewood, N.J.)

Here is another fine example, if I do say so myself, of a publication masthead redrawn to illustratively reflect the magazine’s content/style/theme as a visual surprise to readers. Here, for a “Metal Meltdown” issue, I had the masthead I designed redrawn by an old colleague of mine from Seattle, Steven Chin—a multi-talented illustrator/designer and video game design pioneer—to render the typography in “steel and rivets” (apologies for the scan quality; despite filtering for halftones the repro for the gradation on the lettering is still a little funky—in life, it is chrome smooth). Mind you, this is waaaay back in 1992, so pre-Photoshop (as we know it). Though Chin was an early user of computer programs (he was designing on the old, beige Macs in the middle-1980s, when the rest of us were scoffing at “desktop publishing”), it is entirely possible he redrew this digitally or possibly digitally and “analog” in combination. The “grey” cover-content type was printed in a silver metallic.

JMR:Commercial magazine covers are tough to do. They go against everything that I'm inclined to do in my other work. Like everything, they're their own specialized ghetto. Crisp, "glamour" photo of the star or stars, voluminous cover lines. I think after four years I was only slightly getting the hang of it.

The photograph—Black Sabbath’s Tony Iommi with his Gibson SG and Metallica’s James Hetfield with his ESP Explorer—was shot by one of a gifted cadre of photographers I had at my disposal in those heady days when nearly everything in a given issue was shot original to the magazine (“stock” was limited to concert photography, some current but the rest mostly for historical purposes). In this case, the resourceful and creative Lorinda Sullivan. Equally adept at studio portraiture, as is the case here—a commercial standard at the time for magazine covers—as well as editorial photography with an illustrative edge: collages and constructions that made for some singular feature spreads in my time as art director and principal designer at Guitar World.

Guitar World, August, 1992 issue
Photograph: Lorinda Sulivan
Illustrated Masthead: Steven Chin
——————–
JMR:It’s hard for most people to get the gestalt of these things as they’re not “high design” (I post a “punk” cover and I’ll get a dozen comments). The art and craft of it is more subtle, disguised by the commerciality of it all. As I mentioned, it’s not what I’m inclined to do naturally—but I had to figure it out—and I had wonderful talent to work with. The flip side is the really high gloss commercial stuff that others do, dislike this kinda thing because it’s too knuckleheaded. I can’t win.

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