I've always found their designs rather intriguing so it was nice to see the lid lifted on the magazine...
What really struck me was level of detail that the art dept go to (around 15 members, the lucky buggers...). Absolutely everything is considered fully from the conceptual work itself right through to playful page numbering systems.
One futuristic CGI cover featuring lots of rockets had the studio investigate which vapour trails would be most accurate for each rocket depending on the various fuels they would use.
My favourite was the design treatment for a story on a man who went missing at sea.
The subject of death is always a tricky one to deal with. I had my fair share of these stories while working at The Big Issue so could empathize...
Stories like these are difficult for a designer to 'sell' to the reader because of:
A) The subject matter of death
B) The fact that the event/persons involved are unknown
C) Visual material at best only consists of a blurry family snapshot of the deceased.
What could have been a potentially dull editorial 'sell' was instead transformed by the Wired team into a beautiful, poignant series of seascape images taken at the spot where the last GPS 'blip' was sent from the phone of the missing man.
(Again, the art dept played detective to find this...)
Talking of difficult 'sells' it was interesting to note that one of their biggest selling covers was the 'Cancer' one. Meanwhile, another best seller was the cover pictured above. Typographic solutions on covers defy conventional wisdom (helpfully, rival mags practising the conventional 'eyes to camera' treatment ensure typographic covers leap out better on the newsagents shelves...). The wording on this is also rather explosive given how popular all things green & organic currently are.
Brave and inspiring stuff.
http://www.wired.com/
http://www.semipermanent.com/sydney.shtml
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