For this project, the task was to design an editorial layout for an interview. The interview I chose was taken from "The Rolling Stone Interview" with Susan Sontag (1979).
. Susan Sontag was an American writer, cultural critic, and public intellectual whose work reshaped how people think about art, photography, illness, politics, and modern culture. I have always been entranced by the work of Susan Sontag and I find her rhetoric extremely valuable and effective. For these reasons, I thought it would be great content for a layout.
I wanted to design a clean, structured look so I used the grid system to layout my text. Taken from Swiss Design, the grid System ensures logical organization and consistency. The neutral sans-serif typefaces I chose (Archivo and Acumin Pro) also echo elements of the Swiss design movement, which also known as the International Typographic Style. Sans-serif fonts are best for maximum legibility.
I wanted to create something a bit more novel than your typical black and white editorial, so I used a blue very similar to International Klein Blue. International Klein Blue (IKB) is a deep, matte blue hue developed by French artist Yves Klein. He wanted viewers to experience the color as an atmosphere or "impregnation" rather than a mere object to be looked at. I decided to saturate my text and photos with his signature blue to make the magazine more visually appealing.
Throughout the interview Sontag discusses her life, writing, and the cultural landscape. In the article she discusses aging, arguing that societal, age-based stereotypes are as arbitrary as gender roles, urging women to resist beauty pressures and accept natural aging. I found various images of Sontag throughout her life to include in the article. These images capture her beauty and depth at every age. To fit with the IKB theme, I made all the images black and white and then added a transparent blue layer over them.
The full interview was organized into a 9 page spread to fit content comfortably. I used a two column style throughout the spread.
