Repetition

The Reinventor

editorial

American Airlines Publishing

Samuel Solomon

David W. Radabaugh

Betsy L Semple

American Way

2012 Gold Graphis Editorial Design Award

Graphis 100 Best in Design 2012

This is super tight, not something you might expect out of a magazine produced exclusively for American Airlines. Such an excellent treatment was given to this particular pieces position about Robert Plant. They give him the title of The Reinventor which is weird but I'm not here to talk about it. They bash you over the head with attention grabbing highlighted elements. Underlined type, bold typefaces, changing colors, clustering titles and names, and change sizes. Then they align it with the R in Reinventor. So its like they're purposefully trying to break some rules and making sure your eyes are held open to watch. Then they get this ambiguous P and R logo going on, reminiscent of 3d glasses or a bright contrasting psychedelic poster. It's lapped over one another, reigning in a bit of the roar from the type. Layout lines framing the letters, stand in the center surrounding the type geometric patterns emerge. You can see those repeated in the shapes of the P and the R and then deeper into the the letters below. There's a pound and tap kind of rhythm set up between the large logo and smaller type. This stuff has some great style. Then you look over and see some mop-headed dude swaying, his face distorted, thick bright red hair curly hair thrown over his face to the side. Then you remember back to this thing ultimately being about Robert Plant from the following page that was just screaming at you. The slight ambiguity in the logo, and the ambiguity of the photograph play against each other well. This page captures attention by yelling and drumming, then holds it with a bit of mystery.