A design relaunch is always something quite delicate: If it’s for a product established for many years, a magazine, a logo or a complete corporate design that people know – and love (?) – since they were children.
The thing is: People as such are lazy. Saying good-bye to an established design means that you have to get used to something new which is causing effort. Us humans are trapped in our habits and we do not like to lose things that we are used to.
You probably know this from yourself: If you see the relaunched logo of a company, your first reaction might be "Why did they do this? Looks stupid, completely useless.". Do you recognise yourself here? Once you got over the first confrontation with the (still) unfamiliar, it’s only half as "bad" and as time goes on, you are getting used to it. After a few weeks, you will very likely say something like "That really looks much better, it fits in today’s world. I’m happy they did that.". Taking a look at the old look/logo would probably make you shake your head.
The design relaunch for a magazine is such a challenge too – especially when it’s been on the market for over three decades and is established as the magazine with the highest circulation in its niche. However, market leaders in particular must defend their strong position on the market again and again; firstly of course with their product – but also a good design relaunch can contribute to that.
I’m responsible for the relaunch of such a market leading magazine and have already been working on it for a few weeks: new paper, new colours, new font scheme, new grid, new topics etc. A very important point was the font for the main copy not taking up too much space. (You can read more on fonts for this project in a separate blog post in a couple of weeks, by the way.)
The new design will be launched in autumn 2017. Here you see first insights into the development of the new design:
