simon esterton final

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A Typographic

Circle publication

Signiture1of5


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2 Simon Esterton

CONTE

NTS


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3Contents

Page Article

05 Biography

06 Esterton on Ethics

10 Clients

12 Esterton on Eye


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4 Simon Esterton


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5Biography

BIOGRAPH

Y

ESTERTO

N

Simon Esterson is a sel taught designer. He started his career at the

Architects Journal beore co-ounding Blueprint magazine, where his

rational approach to design and layout won wide acclaim. Renowned

or his editorial design, Esterson has shaped the look o many

journals and magazines, including the Guardian newspaper, where

he was consulting art director, and the international architecturalmtagazine Domus, where he was creative director. He redesigned

the lm magazine Sight and Sound, and has consulted on The Times,

the observer and the Sunday Telegraph newspapers. His book and

catalogue designs include publications or the Royal Academy o

Arts, the Hayward Gallery and Tate Publishing. Esterson is director o

Esterson Associates and is a Royal Designer or Industry.


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6 Simon Esterton

ETHICS

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Is your work less commercial than some?

I really just do editorial work - newspapers, books, magazines - a

little separate world outside the mainstream o graphic design.

Obviously the reader is paying towards the publication, but with

newspapers and magazines the majority o the revenue comes

through advertising sales. I you dont have enough readers you

cant trigger the right advertising - a national brand wont advertise

i the circulation is less than a ew hundred thousand copies. The

advertiser buys space and there are legal and ethical requirements

about what goes in it, which is nothing to do with me. The idea that

advertisers could infuence editorial is clearly wrong, and so there

are many people watching or this - publishers and editors andso on.

But most magazines wouldnt exist without this revenue, so I cant

claim that my work isnt commercial, its absolutely commercial.

Are there political implications?

I tend not to work or the Guardianss competetitors because you

are compromised i you compete with something that you are

involved in. Fortunately the Guardian is the paper I read, so there

isnt adilemma there.


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7On Ethics

Are any types o work more ethical?

The simplistic view is that any public sector or arts organisation

is okay, as are charities, but anything corporate is terrible. But

organisations that rely on public revenue are unded largely rom

taxes that are levied on corporate activity. Many o these bodies have

corporate sponsors too, and even personal donations to charities are

not necessarily clean.

Lets suppose you only work or government departments - but

every two years they spend valuable resources on redesigning their

corporate identities. Then when it comes to being treated decently,

Ive had just as much trouble with arts bodies as any corporate client.

Is behaving well compromising?

We all know people who do antastic work, but are terrible business

people or absolute shits. The kind o drive that gets your idea through

is the same drive that makes you dicult to work with. You cannot

disconnect the politics and aesthetics o somebodys work and the

politics o the way they do their business, can you? But, or most

designers somebodys rocky reputation isnt relevant when set

against a stunning piece o work - its this that will live on.

Do we have the choice to be ethical?

A great deal is predetermined by the system you live under - in our

case capitalism. What does a client do, aced with a quote rom

printer A, who uses recycled paper and waterless or alcohol-ree

printing processes, but is ten per cent more expensive? Then theres

printer B, based in Britain, but a print broker. You get value or

money but have no knowledge o who the printer actually is, and

thereore no idea about processes used or labour conditions. Then

what about printer C, in China and cheaper than A and B? Its a

developing economy, but you know nothing about the environmental

circumstances or the labour relations. The repercussions? One is that

the British print industry will cease to exist.. and thats just the placing

o one print job.

Shoud we consider access in our work?

Guidelines exist, and designers should be aware o them. There

needs to be a balance though. There is a grey areas and good work

can be rejected unnecessarily as a result. When I was working at the

Guardian, we put the chess puzzle in colour in one o the sections.

We has a letter rom a reader who was colour-blind and couldnt do it

anymore. The next day it was changed o course.

Do we need solidarity with other designers?

Lets take ree pitching. We dont do it. Ideally nobody would, but

thats each designers ethical choice. I think that a potential client

should at least make a contribution towards costs. It makes it a more


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8 Simon Esterton

serious enterprise or them, which is in everyoness best interests.

The ideal is or paid competitive pitches involving only three or our

designers.

Should we be producing less?

I think this is happening with newspapers and magazines, but more

or a capital market-driven reason than or an ethical one. With

increasing online inormation, the market or these products shrinks

and becomes more specialised. Its concentrated on people who

value reading as circulation declines and advertising dissapears to

the web. The comparison now would be between the Sun, which is

cheap, has a lot o advertising in it and is a mass-market product,

and the London Review o Books, which has very little advertising

and a high cover price, but youre clearly paying or its intellectual

energy and rigour.

Do we create desire that cant be satisfed?

I suppose we have to recognise that unsated desire keeps us all

employed, so we are understandabley protective o our skills in

ashion and ideas - even i we dont produce it in the West, we

can think it. Constant buying drives the economy, which potentially

brings prosperity or all. Its odd that because o global warming we

are telling Arica, India and China that they cant have what we have.

Its an imperialist attitude. Im not saying that the solution to Aricas

prroblems is more branding o course. Undoubtedly there is a

danger o a visual overload - just occasionally I think maybe we could

just stop here and concentrate on something or somebody else.

How do you think o money in our business?

My mother was a teacher and she was applled when my second

jobon Fleet Street yielded more than hers - we were both quite

disgusted in a way.

I think the more you get paid as a designer, the less control you

have over the job. Thats my broad theory. Its not always true - you

can get involved with a worthy, low budget organisation who will

still interere, but then you have the choice to go ahead, but absent

yousel rom the design process - or to walk away. I you are paid

lots o money its dicult to do that. Money is a antastic corrupter

o aethetic ideals.

Beauty and ethics arent mutually exclusive...

No, although beauty is subjective and very much about context. In

this respect I admire Adol Looss ideas about unction and truth that

say this door handle might not be in the Museum o Modern Art,

but when you rst put your hand on it its quite nice and it opens the

door well.


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9On Ethica

It is possible or graphic design to delight and enrich peoples

experience and to still work. Fashion and zeitgeist can cloud our ability

to discriminate o course - something is wonderul one minute and

pass the next - and i the ocus is making special graphic design,

then the value o unction is demoted. Thats when you get designers

saying to their clients, I know you wanted a leafet, but I thought it

much more un i I took all your money and made a very big pink wall. I

think there just arent enough pink walls in the world.

I got depressed in that period when graphic designers justied

illegible, visually experimental typography by saying, it doesnt matter,

the copys rubbish. I it is rubbish, dont produce it. I like to think that

this doesnt apply to the projects I work on. Editorial clients want

people to read what they produce.

Can work distract us rom existential angst?

All creative activity can.

Do clients know its so personnaly important?

No, wre usually making an object or somebody, but wanting it to be

our object too. O course theres the clients brie and the end-user,

but theres your designer ego too and I think you have to be a very,

very good designer to be ree o it.

Does your work make you happy?

Sometimes it does, but i asked Whats your avourite project? it

would be the next one. You live in hope that your next project will

have everything. I suppose this is about wanting work to be perect in

the terms that you have set up or it. But I think you have to be slightly

suspicious o the pursuit o perection. The world is this kind o shitty,

mixed up place. I think thats something about getting older, you

realise nothings perect and its actually ne to go with the fow. The

most wonderul meal is at its most wonderul the moment its in ront

o you, beore you eat anything. As the meal goes on youre enjoying

it - but more in your mind, in the ordering and maybe the preparation,

and certainly the delivery o it. As you eat it you get a but ull, and a

bit ed up, and you realise that everything is just transient really.

Perection is relative o course. I you design annual reports using

eight colours and two spot varnishes, then newspapers seem poorly

printed. But i you work on newspapers and see the Guardian, the

print quality seems beautiul. Object quality is whats important, in the

broadest sense, so an example is a antasticially realised newspaper

- a useul and attractive object. You have to consider the content. For

me this oten makes the annual report imperect, i not unpleasant.

Something that makes me unhappy is a waste o time, hope and

energy. Theres nothing worse than a job that sets o in one direction

and then somebody who hasnt been involved beore changes it.


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10 Simon Esterton

CLIENTS

Eye

Blu

eprint

TheGuardian


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11Clients


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12 Simon Esterton

Your company publishes Eye now but I know it used to be made

elsewhere. Could you give a bit o background on the magazine

and how you came to be involved with it?

A long time ago I was involved with starting an architecture and

design magazine called Blueprint. Wed been going or a ew years

and we were lucky enough to have Rick Poynor as deputy editor

o the magazine. We did have some writing about graphic design in

Blueprint, but it came and went depending on the interests o the

people who were editing at the time. For example we did things likea British graphics issue with Neville Brody on the cover, and we did

pieces about companies doing motion graphics like the Channel 4

identity where the bars swing around.

But Rick thought there was space or a standalone graphic design

magazine, partly because Graphis, which was the longstanding

international graphic design magazine, had recently been sold

to an American publisher. Peter Murray, who was our publisher,

thought we could capture the European market by publishing in

three languages, so we launched Eye and or a short while it was

published with three languages French, German and English. There

was a lot o text in the magazine because everything was repeated

three times and it was a bit o a production nightmare because i

you wanted to cut something in one language you had to cut it in

the other two languages as well, but anyway that was the genesis

o Eye.

EYE

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13On Eye

Id actually let Blueprint by then and started a little editorial design

studio with another art director called Mike Lackersteen, so I was

no longer day to day involved with the magazine, but obviously

knew the people who made it. So I went o with Mike and we

did newspaper and magazine redesigns all over the world, and

in the meantime, Wordsearch, the little publishing company that

had published Eye and Blueprint, closed, and Eye was sold to one

publisher and Blueprint was sold to another.

Eye then started on this long journey around three dierent

publishing companies, and John Walters became editor. I saw John

quite a lot and we chatted about Eye and o course I read every

issue and was still on the editorial board that met occasionally, and

then about our years ago I bumped into John and he told me that

Nick Bell, who was then the art editor, was leaving and they wereabout to start an issue. So I said, you need a guest art editor dont

you? and didnt think any more about it until the ollowing day when

John rang me and said, Ive been thinking about having a guest

art editor, and maybe this would be a good idea So the studio

picked up an issue and pretty much the next day John was around

with galleys and so orth, and we designed it and we seemed to

keep designing it.

At this point the magazine was owned by Haymarket, so there

was no great redesign, partly because we thought we were just

coming on or one issue. You know how every magazines publishing

requency determines the way you work on it; a weekly magazine

is very dierent to a monthly and quarterly magazines are very

dierent rom those two, because you cant work on it or a whole

quarter. You tend to work on it (especially a magazine like Eye,

which you wont be surprised to hear doesnt have a huge design

ee attached to it) in these very concentrated bursts. So I think

we kept on thinking that we should redesign it, but we didnt do

anything until an issue was right on top o us.

We kept going in that relationship, designing it rom the studio here

in Hoxton but in act the magazine was published by Haymarket

which was where John and his subs and the advertising team were

based, and o course Haymarket was based over in Hammersmith.

I you wanted to choose the two most distant places in London rom

which to work on a magazine, that was it going to a meeting in

Hammersmith was a days commitment really.

Then one day John was having a conversation with one o the

publishers over at Haymarket and it became clear that they might

be interested in selling the magazine, and that was really the

next big stage, where John and I and Hannah Tyson, who is my

business partner here at the design studio, got together and bought

the magazine rom Haymarket. That was about two years ago.

There were quite a lot o negotiations, partly because I dont think


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14 Simon Esterton

Haymarket had ever sold a magazine beore! They were very good at

buying magazines but not so used to selling them they didnt have

the paperwork immediately to hand and things like that. But once all

that was done we had to get on top o the magazine as a business.

And presumably that was also a time or your big redesign as well?

Well not really because we were terribly busy trying to gure out

suppliers and mailing houses and all that business stu that, although

Hannah and John and mysel have all been around magazines and

publishing, none o us had any direct experience in. We knew what

things like advertising sales and subscription management were, but

in the past youd tended to sit in meetings and there was somebody

who looked ater those things, and all o a sudden there wasnt

except or Vicky McDougall who was in charge o advertising sales

or Eye both at Haymarket and then with us.

It also became very clear that although Eye had had a website or

a long time, it was essentially an archive o past articles without

pictures, and was old web technology, so it became clear that we

needed a blog and we needed it quickly, and so in that rst year o

taking over, the emphasis was on moving the magazine here to the

studio in Hoxton, sorting out the business side o it and trying to get

a more responsive web presence. And its only in the last couple o

issues that weve nally sorted out some o the design things. Its not

as though the magazine, I hope, has ever been badly designed, but its

only in the last couple o issues that weve changed things, and got rid

o certain things we inherited rather than created.

I think I probably came to the magazine three or our issues ago,

so about a year ago, and one o the things that has always struck

me is that the magazine seems very assured in its design. The way

its laid out eels very controlled and like you know exactly what

you want to do with it, but it sounds rom what youve said like that

might not be the reality when youre putting it together.

Fundamentally or me its the work that people are interested in, so

the actual magazine should be a airly neutral container or the work.

I dont think the design should be a big shouty design, saying, look

at me Im a design magazine. I think that what people want is to

look at and enjoy the things were talking about. Thats not to say

that it needs to be the same every issue we now have a principle

that we have a dierent typeace or a dierent typeace system or

each issue, and weve done that or three or our issues now, but

underneath it is a pretty structured grid.

The majority o the energy spent on the magazine is on getting the

work in and getting it at the best quality we can, whether thats getting

high res les rom people or photographing nished objects really well.

Jay, who designs the magazine with me, spends a lot o time speaking


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15On Eye

with people who work on moving image pieces, getting them to

re-render the image so that we can publish the pictures bigger than

the standard 72dpi le that you get when you ask somebody or

stills rom their movie graphics. So theres a lot o energy spent

getting good material, making sure its properly reproduced and then

selecting the right stu to use, because its always a balance you

can choose hundreds o pieces o work and theyll all be quite small,

or you can show a ew pieces o work and theyll be quite big, and

dierent authors and dierent articles require a dierent treatment.

So actually when it comes to the pages it is or me a pretty clear

process o just trying to make that content work. A lot o newsstand

magazines have a completely dierent art direction problem, and

or them what you have to try and do is make visual content or

a magazine, whereas here what youre doing is taking the visual

content and nding a way or it to work on the page.

Thats true, but then a magazine like IdN also has lots o visual

content but it takes the opposite approach and loads up every

page with lots o images and employs all sorts o graphic devices

and print processes.

I agree, and I guess its just a question o the approach you choose.

Its like a lot o design one sees there are lots o things I love,

but I just wouldnt do them mysel. And I think you take a route.

We even try to be quite purist about the way we show the work,

so it tends to be shown straight on we dont like showing books

photographed rom unny angles and things like that. Its a bit like

i youre reproducing a painting, you dont want it photographed by

somebody laying on the foor looking up at it, you want to see the

painting as you might see it in a gallery. Im not saying the work

we show is art, but I do think theres a discipline to how you show

things i you want to talk about them properly.

I want to get to the question o the cover price, because Iwas interested when you said that none o you had ever run a

magazine beore Eye, and it strikes me that having such a high

cover price comes rom a position o people who want to make a

magazine saying, well i people want this quality magazine theyll

pay or it, whereas a commercial publisher might have insisted on

lowering the price to get more readers?

Well you know what the economics o magazines is like. Most

magazines you see on the newsstand pay the cost o production

primarily through advertising, and then you have quite a high print

run. Eye is in a dierent place there is some advertising but not

very much, and its a small print run. And we try and produce the

magazine and produce it properly, so inevitably the simple unit

cost o printing is quite high. We see it more like being between

a magazine and a book, and you dont, or at least I dont, think

twice about buying graphic design books that have 30-40 cover


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16 Simon Esterton

prices. I we were to double the amount o advertising or double the

circulation thered certainly be an opportunity to look at a dierent

cover price, but at the moment were just keeping our heads above

water at that cover price.

But I presume youve got it set up at a price whereby the

magazine pays or itsel, whereas I know there are lots o

magazines on Stack that are published by companies that use the

magazine as a calling card or a shop window, so then their other

work subsidises the magazine.

Thats the classic independent magazine, where people do it or no

ee or little ee and its a calling card or the studio, whereas Eye

has always grown up in a dierent tradition. Until the point where

Hannah, John and I bought it, it was made by commercial publishers,

so their attitude was always that this magazine had to try to makea prot. So or us this is a proper business and it should at the very

least always break even. And thats partly because John has always

had a very strong view about contributors being paid, so i you write

a long piece or Eye you get paid or it. Theres a lot o text in the

magazine and its properly edited and properly subbed, and those

things are expensive to do.

And you can tell the quality you pick the magazine up and you

can see that its been properly subbed and printed on good paper

and the rest o it.

I we were starting Eye magazine again now, one might do it in a

dierent way, but the magazine we bought had already got that

structure, and one is always very nervous to take something that is

working and radically change it. I think to suddenly turn around and

cut the cover price o the magazine would change a lot o the ways

people think about it.

But its very dicult, and I think we all know its a tough time at themoment or any magazine whether youre a big commercial publisher

or an independent small publisher like us or just somebody who

wants to make a magazine because theyre passionate about it and

i that means they have to do it or no money and trade avours or

printing and photography then so be it. Thats the level that I came

into it with Blueprint nobody was paid to do that and we ran it or a

ew years just to see what would happen really.

This brings us on to a good question to end things, because I

always ask people what theyd change about the magazine i they

could, i they had more time or more money or whatever it is.

What would you do dierently i you could?

I think at the moment, actually, quarterly is a dicult publishing

requency. Its mostly rustrating because you know that in a year

youve only got our magazines and theres a limited amount o


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17Simon Esterton

things you can cover in that time. At the moment the thing that I

would most like to do is get to grips with how you represent graphic

design and how you represent the magazine online. We have a blog

and we have a website and theyre good, but theyre nothing like

the sort o stu we could do with a bit o money and the right bits o

technology. There are some incredible things you can do and thats

what Id like to be doing now.

Thats kind o the big question or everybody at the moment isnt it?

There are lots o people coming up with their solutions or printing a

magazine online but I dont think anyones hit it yet.

Yes, I think or me the ideal is an amazingly printed magazine litho

magazine on interesting paper, interesting techniques, and getting

the most out o the physical experience o holding a magazine, and

thats what were trying to do with the printed magazine now, as

much as we can aord to.

For example in the issue you sent out last month theres a gateold,

and wed wanted to have a gateold or ages but we waited until

we had the right content, and in this case we had a timeline that

seemed to be an ideal thing to try as a gateold. I remember the rst

publishing company I worked at was called The Architectural Press

and we had a monthly architecture magazine called The Architectural

Review, and it had gateolds every issue with old outs o drawings

and maps and photographs, and then you could see at the moment

that print production became commoditised and print production was

moved to a bigger actory and became much more systematised,

that all those things like gateolds and special papers were taken

out o the process. And I think that i print magazines are going to

survive all those things need to come back into the print process.

Look at what a magazine like Wallpaper is doing its a commercial

magazine with a newsstand run, and yet its doing special colours

and die cuts and old outs, and Monocle too, with its mixed papers

and supplements held in by elastic bands. I think given that thestraight delivery o images and text is something that online can

deliver very eciently, the printed object has to be special, so thats

the desire with the printed magazine.

But then at the same time graphic design is not just printed images

it is websites and moving images, and those sorts o things you

can show in a printed magazine but you cant actually experience

the two-minute title sequence. But i you have an eective online

presence that matches the printed presence then you can, and

thats the ideal.


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simon esterton final

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