1. DETROIT CITY HERE I COME
According to Dana Arnett, Big is an oversized, undeniably bold, and amazingly interesting publication: “Like no other magazine on the planet, each issue is produced in a different country or region with a different team of collaborators, a modern-day publishing miracle.” He selected this issue created by Detroit native John Hobbs as his top pick among the thousands of entries he judged for the STEP 100 design competition.

Hobbs works for a modest-sized New York advertising agency with a reputation for being progressive. Much of Hobbs’ work on this issue was conducted during his spare time, but with the full sanction of his agency. Hobbs is not, by his own admission, a graphic designer, “but I love design.”

“I got involved through some friends in New York who had done a Big issue before,” he says. “The magazine had been working on the broad theme of American cities and I heard they wanted to explore Detroit. I met with Marcelo Jünemann [the magazine’s founder and editor] and he decided to give me a shot.”

Over the course of 160 pages, Hobbs’ long drive through Detroit uses no grid. Taken as a whole, it meanders into and out of some of Detroit’s most inviting and forbidden corners, alleys, and neighborhoods. For Detroit fans or groupies, the issue illuminates one of America’s greatest and most unappreciated cities. For Detroit haters, the issue merely confirms their prejudice. “I also learned a great deal about my home city,” Hobbs says, “by starting with what and who I knew, which led me to new places and new people.” But Hobbs turns the city’s dirt, trouble, and reputation for badness and dysfunctional behavior into assets of vivid, often heart-breaking expression.

Adds Arnett, “The issue exposes readers to the grittiness and decay of one of America’s most misunderstood metropolises. In the city where cars are king, Big explores the post-industrial city, exquisitely linking Detroit’s past and future. As with all issues of Big, I was taken by the way design, imagery, and typography immediately communicate the subject—you aren’t forced to wade through endless pages of perfume ads to uncover the powerful scent of its content.”

The Detroit Metro Convention and Visitors Bureau might hate it, but Big’s Detroit issue tells a real story. And it doesn’t waste your time. Or stink up the room.