Columns Count: Relevant Magazine’s Unique Approach to Layout

While perusing the periodical shelves one day at our campus library, a magazine cover with my newly acquired music obsession thanks to my sister, the Civil Wars, called me to pick up a copy of Relevant.

As soon as I saw the tag line “God. Life. Progressive Culture.” and the recycled symbol next to the barcode, I began to investigate the trendy bi-monthly package a bit deeper.

Columns- not one size fits all.

The layout of this piece was definitely new. There seemed to be four different standard column widths, which makes for quite an unexpected grid. In an article on local and sustainable food, for instance,  the first column to the right was two and three quarter inches,  with a one and a half info box on Agrarianism books jutting down about three fourths of the page, followed by a two and a half column, and a one and three quarter margin, sweeping over to a four inch column  and a two and a quarter inch column on the facing page.

Boy, that was a mouth full! Just look below:

These different sized columns find their way in different combinations onto Q & A layouts, one page articles, and album reviews of “Active Child.” The way Relevant inserts pictures, info boxes, and IPhone bar codes seems unique as well, pushing a one inch column between two larger ones .

They keep continuity with their typefaces though, a lean all caps sans serif serving for most headings in different colors and font sizes, major headings for lead articles like “OK, GO,” or “Mute Math” featuring more creative and graphically in twined lettering.

Round the Pie in 6 Pages

Speaking of graphics, there’s one bit in particularly I like that serves the publication well: a red pie-slice-hexagon entitled “Slices.”

 The first one page “Look at Life, Faith, and Culture” opens with something different each time, from music industry’s “Cloud” to the “Burqa Ban” in France. The following pages use a similar layout grid and focus on Life, Culture, More Life, Tech, Culture again, and Faith, at least in the September/October edition. As you progress through the snippets of changing standards, a burgundy slice of the hexagon pie moves clock wise as the topic text stays in the same spot.

Disorienting or Re-orienting?

Sometimes the bold photos and loud graphics crowd things up a bit, making seas of text for large articles a relief for the eye that forgot what white space looks like, but is busy layout the preferred approach in a web based community where adds squeeze into any space possible on internet pages?

Maybe the creative layout of the Relevant Magazine is shouting a deeper message: do something different.

As Shane Hipps says in his book “Flickering Pixels,” the medium of the piece should reflect the message.  Relevant calls its readers to ask questions and seek to solve world problems through creative solutions, so why not solve layout decisions the same way?

Relevant fits all the “good design” qualifications: strong grid, common typefaces and themes and a hierarchy of elements.

But they do it in a way that engages and surprises the reader, allowing more freedom for graphs, pictures, and info boxes than standard equal sized or duo-sized columns of other popular magazines.

When things at first seem random, perhaps they are just creative.