| iKels Consulting

01 January 0001

One of the most renowned magazines in the world, The New York Times Magazine, has undergone redesign with two key aims: to carve out a distinct identity, and to embrace the current digital climate.

When a publication with this lengthy a history — it’s been in print for 119 years, its print version is inserted into the Sunday edition of the New York Times as a supplement, and currently boasts a circulation of more than 1.5 million copies per week — goes through a redesign, much care and thought has to be invested to ensure that its readers aren’t upset.

The new look of the publication primarily centered on three, crucial areas:

its logo;
its suite of fonts;
its abbreviated social media logo.

Revised logo

Readers will be taken by the most notable of all three changes, which is the update to the magazine’s logo. Whereas the old logo had letters that were spaced together very tightly — and, as a result, was harder to read — the new logo design features more generous tracking. This greatly increases legibility on the Web.

Nyt Logo

According to an editorial by editor Jake Silverstein that takes readers behind the scenes of the revamping, “…the new logo is more modern, more graciously spaced.” Credit for this logo update goes to typographer Matthew Carter.

New typefaces

he changes to typeface didn’t stop at the logo of the magazine. The publication has also introduced a whole new suite of original fonts. The typefaces were the creation of Henrik Kubel from A2-Type. The magazine got rid of their entire slew of old fonts to make room for this sweeping design change.

Nyt Tipografia

According to the same editorial by Silverstein, “Not a single letter in this relaunch issue has ever seen the light of day. They are infants. Treat them gently.” Interestingly, none of the new fonts has even been named yet. The inside joke at the magazine is that they were close to christening their new typeface “really crappy font” to prevent another outfit from ever using it, should the magazine somehow let its exclusivity get compromised.

Redesigning for the web

That brings us to the next goal that the editor wanted to accomplish in this redesign: making the magazine more friendly to readers on the Web, one thing that the magazine struggled to successfully pull off…until now, they hope.

Traditionally, The New York Times Magazine, for all its longevity, has only always been a so-called “in-betweener.” It was both trapped in the middle of the Times’ bulky Sunday print edition, as well as being a “long-form subsite” on the Times’ website. Because an increasing number of Times’ readers have switched to digital-only, Silverstein wanted to build up the magazine’s branding on the Internet, through its web edition. That’s where having a new family of custom typeface will prove so instrumental.

Shorter social media logo

As part of this new strategy to build up the web presence of the publication, it’s no surprise that Silverstein also focused on social media in the redesign, particularly the magazine’s social media logo.

Such a condensed version of the magazine’s logo is perfect for more casual settings like its Twitter page.