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February 18, 2009

RIP Rosie


This week I gave my magazine history presentation on McCall's magazine. McCall's seems to be the Madonna of magazines, and has had multiple attempts at reinvention throughout the past century. One successful redesign occurred in the mid-50's with the addition of Otto Storch as Art Director. Storch was a pioneer in the technique of combining typography and visuals to create one cohesive message. This is especially effective in his "Forty-Winks Reducing Plan" design.

We see typography like this in almost every magazine spread nowadays, but back then Storch was exacto-ing words and letters out of stories and warping them BY HAND. Impressive.

Another not-so-successful redesign occurred in 2001. McCall's combined with ROSIE O'DONNELL(?) to create "Rosie" magazine. It lasted a year. 

Not that I even need to ask, but here I go..."Why did it fail?" The Onion ran this hysterical sidebar regarding the fold. 





2 comments:

Philip Prouhet said...

Chelsea,

This comment is actually for the Kanye video. It wouldn't let me do it up there for some reason.

The video, song and Kanye are great. I really think the video would have been amazing without the pixel effect. It is almost like a designer using too many filters in Photoshop. Creative but maybe a bit much.

You have to check out this video that Kanye asked Zach Galifinakis. Two of my favorite people producing one ridiculous video. Hilarious though...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2x0TumWdlhk

Maggie Searcy said...

your presentation on McCall's was great last week. I've been meaning to tell you. It's sad how dynamic the changes were in its existence and then, took over and unfortunately it's the only one of the seven sisters that has died. Maybe one day someone will bring it back and bring a whole new spin to it! Rosie