judges’ picks >> robynne raye
3 GUM
Designers Kevin Grady and Colin Metcalf launched their newest publishing venture, Lemon, because they wanted a more newsstand-friendly publication than their previous endeavor, the elaborate, award-winning boxed publication, GUM. Not that the upstart publishers sold their souls in the process: Their new magazine features four advertisers per twice-yearly issue, contrary to garden-variety glossies that have readers sifting through a haystack of ads to find a needle of content.

Early in 2006, judge Robynne Raye, cofounder of Modern Dog Design in Seattle, was browsing a bookstore when the first issue of Lemon—whose theme centered on the supernatural world—caught her eye. That issue’s art, music and fashion coverage offered her more in the way of creative inspiration than the nearby section of graphic design magazines, which had grown a little too familiar for her tastes. Lemon, she says, is the kind of magazine she’s likely to collect. “You get the sense that the people who put this together are really part of the culture they’re covering,” says Raye.

“Whereas a lot of magazines seem driven by other desires—like selling ads or scrambling to come up with stories to use as filler— this really feels like a labor of love.”

Like its debut publication, the second issue of Lemon is driven by its creators’ commitment to breaking through most magazines’ formulaic standards. “A lot of magazines feel like, ‘Here’s how a typical magazine spread behaves,’ with a big photo, a headline that’s kind of a pun, and then your body copy,” says Grady. “There are a lot of great magazines that do that very well. But as a designer that doesn’t interest me.”

Rather than a series of separate elements that happen to be bound together in one book, Lemon is a continuous experience. In its design, Grady, Metcalf and art director Adam Larson consciously removed mechanisms that would otherwise separate one element from the other. There’s a conspicuous deficiency of page numbers, for instance, and every spread maintains a limited palette of golds, blacks and reds. The wholly intentional result is that it can be unclear when one article ends and another begins.

Continuity also stems from the magazine’s treatment of themes. Mainstream magazines—also fans of the “Focus Issue”— might offer a handful of articles about Theme X but otherwise conduct business as usual. This issue of Lemon presents its “Espionage” theme as part of the publication’s texture—literally: A subtly raised, spot-varnished pattern on the cover depicts mock national crests of feuding cold-war countries. Inside, the idioms of international intrigue—from Sagmeister posing as Bond to a comic strip interview with indie band Sonic Youth that reads like an FBI interrogation—infiltrate every page.

Of late, the partners have been entertaining new business models (Lemon could become an annual with a higher newsstand price), but this operation will likely never be shaped by ROI concerns. “This is much more personal,” says Grady. “It would probably be easier if it we could say, ‘Okay, let’s throw some pages together and get this out the door.’ But for us, Lemon is more like making art.” by Tiffany Meyers

GUM
EDITOR IN CHIEF, CREATIVE DIRECTOR: Kevin Grady
EXECUTIVE EDITOR, CREATIVE DIRECTOR: Colin Metcalf
EDITOR, ART DIRECTOR: Adam Larson
EDITOR, HEAD WRITER: Robert Bundy
PHOTOGRAPHER IN RESIDENCE: Guido Vitti
EDITOR, COMIC SECTION: Ian Sattler
EDITOR AT LARGE: JT LeRoy
COPY EDITOR: Ashley Lynch-Mahoney
ASSISTANTS: Natalie Puccio, Ryan Habbyshaw
PHOTOGRAPHERS: Dave Bradley, Adam Larson, Ruddy Bello
WRITERS: Blakkbox, Rich Herstek, Laurie Asmus, Armin Vit, Sue Apfelbaum, Noelle Valdivia
PUBLISHER: GUM
CONTACT: www.lemonland.net