judges’ picks >> john bielenberg

1. PENTAGRAM DESIGN, SAN FRANCISCO
Judge John Bielenberg, partner at C2 in San Francisco, selected volume 11, number 1 of @issue not to reward this issue specifically but to honor the magazine’s legacy. “I think Kit is a genius,” Bielenberg says of Pentagram partner Kit Hinrichs, “and certainly he’s been acknowledged for what he does, but I think that often, designers don’t understand the level he’s operating on. That’s why I chose this piece.” Eleven years ago, Hinrichs and editor/writer Delphine Hirasuna, together with the Corporate Design Foundation’s chairman Peter Lawrence, launched the magazine to communicate the value of design to a readership of businesspeople—picking up not a few readers within the design community along the way.

Its deceptively simple design seems an exercise in restraint. In fact, it’s a direct response to the needs of @issue readers. “You don’t read this like The New Yorker,” says Hirasuna. “You thumb through it, look at the captions and imagery, and if you’re interested, then you read the stories. With @issue, if you read only the captions and look at the visuals, you can understand the stories.” Bielenberg most admires the fact that @issue—with its refined balance between image and copy—achieves clarity of message and visual drama simultaneously, flying in the face of the misperception that designers can’t have both.

“He’s the master as far as editorial design goes,” says Hirasuna of her long-time collaborator. “More than any other designer I know, Kit really respects content. He has a very strong desire to communicate more than style, and that comes across clearly.” Hinrichs glosses over any such accolades, focusing instead on his next set of goals for @issue: Find a third sponsor, increase circulation, and expand to include an additional case study per issue. He says that the magazine’s quizzes—which lightheartedly test readers’ design IQ on everything from emoticons to logos—are widely well-received. “You don’t have to take four years of design classes to understand them,” Hinrichs says. “I think that’s the best kind of communication.”

And although he’s speaking specifically about the quizzes, the statement perfectly encapsulates the magazine’s approach in making design more accessible to more people—pedigreed or not.
Tiffany Meyers

Pentagram Design, San Francisco
CREATIVE DIRECTOR: Kit Hinrichs
DESIGNER: Takayo Muroga
EDITOR/COPYWRITER: Delphine Hirasuna
PHOTOGRAPHERS: Barry Robinson, Timothy Hursley
ILLUSTRATORS: Gerard DuBois, John Mattos
CLIENT: Corporate Design Foundation
CONTACT: www.pentagram.com