Jan White: this is so obvious that it hurts

In his preface to Designing for magazines,¹ Jan White made a plea for editors and designers to work together and respect each other’s contributions. Designers must read the thing they are designing, and editors must see design as a communication tool they can use:

Being human, few writers trust [the] visual specialist to do right by their words; by the same token, few designers ever get as involved in the content of the material as they should. Instead, designers tend to concentrate on the superficial gloss of making it all look appealing.

If we are to communicate quickly and clearly (as we must, if we are to retain our audience), then we must accept the fact that WHAT we say is integral with HOW we say it. Visual form and verbal content are inseparable. That is why it is essential that verbal people become more sympathetic toward the visual aspect of their work (even if they don’t all choose to become art directors) and why visual people must become more interested in the editorial purpose of the stories so they can express them cunningly and dramatically. They should, with justice, learn to consider themselves editors-who-use-design-as-a-tool, rather than pure designers grafting attractiveness onto strange materials. Graphic design is not something added to make pages look lively. It is not an end in itself. It is the means to an end – that of clear, vivid, stirring communication of editorial content.

This is so obvious that it hurts. What hurts more, though, is the sad fact that two separate editorial specialties have developed in our profession that create artificial barriers, and serve no useful purpose other than that rather shameful one of people needing someone to look down on and complain about.

1. Jan V White (1982) Designing for magazines, Reed Publishing