Design can't be left to designers

"This is what judging magazines comes down to. Put any sampling of the great and the good together, feed them proper coffee and posh biscuits and they will soon favour the magazine with the most expensive advertising in it."

So says David Hepworth in an amusing piece about magazine design and judging, published October 10 in the Guardian. Hepworth who, in addition to being an author (The Secret Life of Entertainment) and the magazine columnist for the Guardian, is editorial director of Development Hell Inc., says design has to be judged against practical considerations.

Any judgments of magazine design are made in the context of a marketplace, not a conference room. Does it appeal to enough of the people in that market? Do they recognise what it is? Once they get it, do they find it easy to use? Next to such stark considerations, talk about aesthetics is just flim-flam. "I suppose it's all very well if you're a 14-year-old girl," said one of my fellow judges, dismissing a magazine aimed at 14-year-old girls.

Hepworth lays down his "five key prejudices" about magazine design (and goes into some detail about each. See the article):

1 The person in charge of design is the editor.

2 All magazines are picture magazines.

3 There is no such thing as a picture that doesn't need a caption.

4 Designers are apt to wriggle out of practical problems.

5 A cover must appeal to a moron in a hurry.

"Any designer who finds these conclusions just too "fwightful"," said Hepworth, "can probably get a job on some glossy quarterly mailed to the friends of an art gallery and printed on squares of lino - leaving the rest of us to pursue our tawdry trade."