12. KNICKERBOCKER DESIGN
“‘Empire’ is the ninth issue of Nozone, a magazine I have been publishing off and on since 1990,” explains art director Nicholas Blechman. Inspired by the flourishing of alternative comics and the ’zine movement of the 1980s and ’90s, Nozone zeroed in on a variety of themes ranging from “Ecology” to “Extremism.”

In a nutshell, Blechman says, “‘Empire’ rallies a coalition of artists, designers, writers, and photographers to protest the mysterious, all-powerful phenomenon that dominates our civilization.”

The design inspiration came from street art and the general grittiness of New York, Blechman says. “Walking around the city I became attracted to the photocopied fliers on lampposts, stencils on sidewalks, and opposition stickers. A fresh culture of protest was brewing at the time of the American-led invasion in Iraq, and helped energize this issue.”

Blechman reigned in design to let the art speak for itself. “The pieces are so eclectic, it has its own organic energy,” he says. “The most diffcult aspect of the project from a design perspective,” he continues, “was trying to unify 40 different contributors working in 40 different styles using different fonts into a single cohesive piece.”

In the end the variety blends well. Printed on cheap, newsprinttype paper and using military green as a second color, the book as a whole is seamless. Romy Ashby