‘Why not let the images speak for themselves?,’ James Nachtwey wrote to us at some point during the production for our current issue with the legendary war photographer. It was somewhat of a turning point in the design that was marked by a process of continuous reduction: what started out with a lot of ideas for folding covers and the like ended up with the most minimal design possible: two booklets, one reserved for images, one for text, both at their most reduced, where the design is barely noticeable; a black border for the images, the typography inspired by classic newspaper design, and not much else, really.
And yet, as so often, simplicity might look easy but is often the hardest to get right. This is also our first issue without any typography on the cover, not even our name – with such a strong photograph of 9/11 at hand, that defining moment in recent history as well as in James Nachtwey’s career, why not let the image speak for itself indeed. Thanks to Edwin van Gelder of Mainstudio for doing such marvelous work.
