One of the best parts of my job at Cincinnati Magazine is I often get to represent us in public settings, from speaking at meetings to interacting with people at our events. The No. 1 reaction I get, by far, is how much readers love the photography, illustrations, and overall design of the print magazine. I honestly don’t get many complaints, other than the text being occasionally too small.
I always appreciate the feedback, even though I can’t take credit for the design work. As a word person, I’m tempted to sometimes respond by asking, How about that headline pun in the David Pepper profile story? Luckily for everyone involved, I keep that to myself and instead smile and say, Thank you.
This month’s Best of the City section reminds me of how talented our design team is. The magazine has been doing annual “best of” picks since 1977, with a few gap years, so you can imagine we’ve tried just about every conceivable way to illustrate the theme on the cover and in the issue itself. The writing is easier to vary each year because our picks take a mostly “year in review” approach and so tend to be current and fresh.
Associate Editor Emma Balcom took on organizing the staff picks (91 total) this year for the first time, and she worked with Design Director Brittany Dexter on a museum theme presenting a display of staff picks as art pieces. Everyone on the design and editorial staffs contributed ideas and suggestions—another strength of the magazine, I think—and Brittany pulled together contributions from local photographers and freelance artists to create a fun art gallery look and feel. I love it, and I hope you do as well.
A secondary benefit of our designers’ talent is that it attracts creatives from all over who want to be associated with the magazine, which in turn helps raise the bar even higher. The contributing artists and writer featured on this page are publishing their first Cincinnati Magazine work in this issue.
Sorry to appear so self-congratulatory here, but I’m just a big fan of our design team. Almost as much as I’m a fan of puns.
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