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Tom Bodkin (Chief Creative Officer: The New York Times) Aug 30, 2024

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THE FIFTH

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You cannot overstate how much Tom Bodkin has changed the Times. In fact, you can say that there was the Timesbefore Tom and the Timesafter Tom.

The Times before Tom threw as many words as possible at the page, with little regard for the reader. The Times before Tom thought tossing a couple of headshots on the page was all the visual journalism we needed. The Times before Tom held to a hierarchy where designers were the other, somehow not quite journalists.

Then there is The New York Times after Tom.

Tom taught us that design was not only integral to journalism, it was in fact integral to storytelling at its height. The front page that listed the COVID dead was more powerful than any one story could ever be.

Roy Peter Clark, the writing guru at the Poynter Institute, captured it best:

“Nothing much on that front page looked like news as we understand it, that is, the transmission of information,” he wrote. “Instead it felt like a graphic representation of the tolling of bells. A litany of the dead.”

Personally, Tom taught me something that made it easier to lead the newsroom in the digital age: Design demands a level of open-mindedness to the possibilities of different types of storytelling. It also rewards collaboration, since the most perfect stories are told by different disciplines working together to convey the best version of the truth every day.

Those, in fact, are the qualities that mark the modern, digital New York Times. Qualities that honestly have made it the most successful news report of the day.

Hard to imagine we—certainly not I—would have been prepared for this new world without Tom’s leadership.

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This episode is made possible by our friends at Mountain Gazette, Commercial Type, and Lane Press.

Best of PID—Hans Teensma (Designer: Outside, New England Monthly, Disney, more) Aug 23, 2024

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DUTCH MASTER

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Dutch-born, California-raised designer Hans Teensma began his magazine career working alongside editor Terry McDonell at Outside magazine, which Rolling Stone founder Jann Wenner launched in San Francisco in 1977.

When Wenner sold Outside two years later, Teensma and McDonell headed to Denver to launch a new regional, Rocky Mountain Magazine, which would earn them the first of several ASME National Magazine Awards. On the move again, Teensma’s next stop would be New England Monthly, another launch with another notable editor, Dan Okrent. The magazine was a huge hit, financially and critically, and won back-to-back ASME awards in 1986 and ’87.

Ready for a new challenge — and ready to call New England home — Teensma launched his own studio, Impress, in the tiny village of Williamsburg, Massachusetts. The studio has produced a wide range of projects, including startups and redesigns, as well as pursuing Teensma’s passion for designing books.

Since 1991, Teensma has been incredibly busy: He was part of a team that built a media empire for Disney, launching and producing Family Fun, Family PC, Wondertime, and Disney Magazine. He’s designed dozens of books and redesigned almost as many magazines. And he continues to lead the creative vision of the critically-acclaimed nature journal, Orion.

You might not know Teensma by name, but his network of deep friendships runs the gamut of media business royalty. Why? Because everybody loves Hans.

When they designed the ideal temperament for survival in the magazine business, they might as well have used his DNA. He’s survived a nearly 50-year career thanks to his wicked sense of humor, his deep well of decency, and above all, his unlimited reserves of grace.

You’re gonna love this guy.

Best of PID—Janet Froelich (Designer: The New York Times Magazine, T, Real Simple) Aug 16, 2024

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THE ART DIRECTOR’S ART DIRECTOR

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Janet Froelich is one of the most influential and groundbreaking creative directors of all time. For over two decades, she lead the creative teams at The New York Times Magazine and its sister publication, T: The New York Times Style Magazine. In this episode, Froelich recalls her own personal 9/11 story, and what is was like to be in the newsroom on that awful day, as well as how she helped create the magazine cover that inspired and informed the memorial to the Twin Towers and those who lost their lives there. She talks about other Times magazine covers that left a mark, about her early years as an artist living in SoHo and hanging out at Max’s Kansas City, and why you should never be afraid to hire people better than you.

Best of PID—Dan Winters (Photographer: The New York Times, Texas Monthly, Wired, more) Aug 09, 2024

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A HANDY MAN

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Photographers are gearheads. They’re always throwing around brand names, model numbers, product specs.

So when legendary photographer Eddie Adams asked today’s guest, Dan Winters, if he knew how to handle a JD-450, it was a no-brainer. He had grown up with a JD-350. So yeah, the 450 would be no problem.

But here’s the funny thing: the JD-450 is not made by Nikon. Or Canon. Or Fuji. Or Leica. Not even his beloved Hasselblad. Nope. The JD-450 isn’t made in Tokyo, Wetzlar, or Gothenburg.

The John Deere 450 bulldozer is made in Dubuque, Iowa, USA.

And what Eddie Adams urgently needed right at that moment, was someone to backfill, level, and compact a trench at his farm, which, coincidentally, was prepping to host the first-ever Eddie Adams Workshop, the world-renowned photojournalism seminar, at his farm in Sullivan County, New York, near the site of the 1969 Woodstock music festival.

Get to know Dan Winters a little bit, and none of this will come as a surprise to you. It also won’t surprise you that the bulldozer incident isn’t even the funniest part of the story of how Winters got to New York City in 1988 to launch what has become one of the most distinguished careers in the history of editorial photography. A career which began with his first job at the News-Record, a 35,000-circulation newspaper in Thousand Oaks, California.

The secret—spoiler alert—to his remarkable career, Winters will say, “is based in a belief that I’m being very thorough with my pursuits and being very realistic. I’m not lying to myself about the effort I’m putting into it. Because this is not a casual pursuit at all. This is 100 percent commitment.”

Well, that, and out-of-this-world talent and vision.

Best of PID—George Gendron (Editor: Inc., New York, Boston Magazine, more) Aug 02, 2024

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THE JAZZ OF THE NEWSROOM

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In this episode, we talk to George Gendron, the long-time editor [Inc. Magazine] and educator who created one of the first liberal arts-based entrepreneurship programs in America. We talk about his first job working under legendary editor Clay Felker in the early days of New York magazine, how a third-grade book report set him up for a life in publishing, the near-fatal car accident that changed everything, why we should look to TV for the future of magazines, and how to build an economically-sustainable life around doing the work that you love.

Best of PID—Michele Outland (Designer: Bon Appétit, Gather Journal, Nylon, more) Jul 26, 2024

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THE ARTIST AS ENTREPRENEUR

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Michele Outland has spent her career at some really beautiful magazines. Beautiful ... because she made them that way. Her resume includes stops at Martha Stewart’s Everyday Food, Domino, Nylon, and Bon Appétit, as well as the magazine she created and launched with her good friend, Fiorella Valdesolo: Gather Journal.

Gather, which only published 13 issues, made a powerful impact on the magazine business. In its five-year run, it won a James Beard Award for Visual Storytelling, an Art Director’s Club Award, and 20 medals from the Society of Publication Designers, including being named “Brand of the Year” in 2015.

Under her leadership, Bon Appétit won the ASME National Magazine Award for Design along with a slew of SPD awards.

We talked to Michele about: the power of internships, her Korean mother’s influence on the way she thinks about food, about how to start a magazine in a post-print world — and when we can expect the return of Gather Journal, the strong female role models who shaped her career, and, of course, PIZZA.

Best of PID—Kurt Andersen (Author & Editor: Spy Magazine, New York, Studio360, more) Jul 19, 2024

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THE GREATEST STARTUP IN THE HISTORY OF MAGAZINE STARTUPS

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We’ve always had a thing for magazine launches. They’re filled with drama and melodrama, people behaving with passion and conviction, and people ... misbehaving. Anything to get that first issue onto the stands and into the hands of readers.

Some new ventures seem to sneak in the back door. Who saw Wired or Fast Company coming?

Others are to the manner born, and from the most elite print parents. But, even with that pedigree they never gain traction, never display the scrappiness and experimentation that we’ve come to expect from anything new. (You know who you are).

But then, one day, along comes The Greatest Startup in the History of Magazine Startups. A magazine that dares to mercilessly, and humorously, vilify high society. The one that big time journalists pretend to ignore but were first to the newsstand each month to grab their copy. The one that created packaging conceits: Separated at Birth, Private Lives of Public Enemies, Blurb-o-mat, and Naked City. Plus, the adorable nicknames — “Short-fingered vulgarian” — that persist to this day.

That’s right, we’re talking about Spy.

And in this episode we’ll meet Kurt Andersen who, along with Graydon Carter and Tom Philips, founded what became an instantaneous cultural phenomenon: SPY magazine. The axis of the publishing world tilted when it hit the stands.

“Spy was the most influential magazine of the 1980s,” the author Dave Eggers wrote. “It definitely changed the whole tone of magazine journalism. It was cruel, brilliant, beautifully-written and perfectly-designed — and feared by all.”

There had never been anything like Spy before.

Nothing since has come close.

Best of PID—Roger Black (Designer: Rolling Stone, Esquire, Newsweek, New York, Smart, more) Jul 12, 2024

Show notes

WHAT’S BLACK AND WHITE AND RED ALL OVER?

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Roger Black is a pioneer. His art direction of iconic print brands and high-profile redesigns, his early embrace of digital publishing technology, and his typographic innovations are hallmarks of a 50-year, trailblazing career.

He’s refined his design mastery at publications ranging from Rolling Stone to Esquire to Newsweek to The New York Times Magazine. He’s written books and started companies. He’s worked for clients on every continent.

And now, at 73, Black’s focus has shifted to type. More specifically Type Network, a font platform launched in 2016, where he serves as the company’s chairman.

Black’s design legacy not only includes memorable makeovers but also the fundamental need for an underlying reason and purpose behind them, often sophisticated, always functional. Throw in his signature color palette—red, white, and of course, black—and you’re in business.

All that said, Black preaches that the true DNA of a successful brand identity is its typography.

We talked to Black about why he left home in the third grade, how an early blunder almost cost him his publishing career, what it felt like to follow in his mother’s footsteps at The New York Times, what he thinks are the five best-executed magazines of all time, and about why he’s always on the move—and where he’s headed next.

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This episode is made possible by our friends at Mountain Gazette and Commercial Type.

Rob Orchard (Cofounder/Editor: Delayed Gratification, Time Out, more) Jul 05, 2024

Show notes

THE SLOWER THE BETTER

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Given that this is the final show of the season, it is perhaps a bit poetic that our guest today is Rob Orchard from Delayed Gratification. Not that we would plan an episode around a bad pun. Not us.

Delayed Gratification is media created to comment on, and offer a counterpoint to, the media. Rob Orchard and his team met each other, for the most part, in Dubai in the early aughts, working on Time Out Dubai. In that magical place on the Gulf they found—no surprise—lots of money and conditions amenable to journalism of all sorts.

Then Orchard returned to London … and he didn’t like what he found. He and his friends and colleagues were dismayed by the realities of the digital world, the relentless emphasis on quantity over quality, the losing battle between what they wanted to do and the evangelists of SEO and purveyors of click bait, and so they created Delayed Gratification.

Inspired by the Slow Journalism movement taking root around the world, Delayed Gratification is a quarterly publication that values contemplation and time, a curation of the important events of the past three months, along with long-form essays and colorful infographics. The result is a reminder that important information, properly curated or edited, continues to be enlightening, informative, entertaining—and extremely important.

Delayed Gratification is an indie in the truest sense of the word. And probably the only media that suffers existential quandaries around their own social media. Because Rob Orchard and his team are passionate about getting things right. Not getting there first.

Richard Turley (Designer: Interview, Bloomberg Businessweek, Civilization, more) Jun 28, 2024

Show notes

RICHARD TURLEY CAN’T STOP, WON’T STOP

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Richard Turley is changing the idea of the magazine. Richard Turley has no idea what a magazine is in the year 2024. And in this sense, he is not so different from you or I.

Richard Turley’s magazines—and there are many—are confrontations, loaded with text, or not, sometimes, but if you ask him, he’s not sure what he’s doing. He claims to be boring. He once said, “I’m a boring, traditional, formalist thinker” and he probably is, but you have to really know your stuff to get where he’s coming from.

Where Richard Turley is coming from is England, yes. He got his start at The Guardian. He was then lured to New York to help revamp Bloomberg Businessweek and his work there made art directors everywhere ugly jealous.

The secret to Richard Turley’s work is the freedom it seems to exhibit. From form. From rules. From common sense. Sometimes even from good taste. But only if you’re stuck up. Which Richard Turley is most definitely not.

Richard Turley once claimed his design philosophy was “to do something unlikable, repellent, horrible, and ugly.” Richard Turley is punk in a way, but mainstream. He’s underground-adjacent. Which just makes him even more punk.

Richard Turley has worked at MTV and ad agencies. Richard Turley designed the logo for one of the world’s largest sports. Richard Turley now runs his own creative agency. And is the art director of Interview magazine. And co-created Civilization. And Nuts International. And Offal. And has designed a literary magazine, Heavy Traffic. And has just redesigned one of the most iconic magazines in existence. Which one? You’ll have to listen to the podcast.

But just remember this: Richard Turley is a busy man.

I, however, am not Richard Turley. Far from it.

Nobody is.

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