Research Brief: Wallpaper* Magazine OUGD405

Basic Research

Wallpaper (trademarked Wallpaper* with an asterisk) is an IPC Media magazine focusing on travel, design, entertainment, fashion, and media. It is a monthly subscription magazine costing £32 a year. Which is relatively cheap compared to other design magazines such as Blue Print costing close to £60.

The magazine was launched in 1996 by Canadian journalist Tyler Brûlé and Austrian journalist Alexander Geringer, CEO of aheadmedia, in London, UK. Brûlé sold the magazine to Time Warner in 1997. He stayed on as editorial director until 2002. 2007 saw the appointment of a new editor-in-chief, Tony Chambers, a self-styled "visual journalist".

Apart from publishing the monthly magazine, Wallpaper also publishes travel guidebooks. There are more than 80 different cities currently available.

Other notable names that have worked at Wallpaper include Jeremy Langmead, Marcus Von Ackermann, Suzy Hoodless, and Alasdhair Willis.

It has had some iconic and beautifully designed covers.

Controversy

In the September 2005 edition, an article by Bronwyn Davies, an English-speaking South African, described Afrikaans as "one of the world's ugliest languages", South African businessman Johann Rupert (chairman of the Richemont group), responded by withdrawing advertising for brands such as Cartier, Van Cleef & Arpels, Montblanc and Alfred Dunhill from the magazine. The withdrawal of advertising of these brands would have had a huge impact on the magazine. This bought me to realize the importance of advertising in magazines and the income that it can generate. But also the importance of brands advertising in the right magazines in order to sell their products. I decided to conduct a survey asking people if they would purchase an item based on an advertisement in a magazine.

20/25 people said they would purchase an item based on an advertisement in a magazine. 5 said they wouldn’t.

Design of Magazine

The cover designs are always stunningly designed. They are normally eye catching and bold. I particularly like the more stylistic abstract covers. I personally am drawn to the covers, and would buy a magazine based on its cover design. Because of this I decided to conduct a survey to find if others would also buy a magazine based on its cover design.

I asked 25 graphic design students if they would purchase a design magazine based on its front cover.

18 people said they would buy a design magazine based on its cover. 7 people said they were more interested in the content, rather than souly the cover, however it did play a part.

Next I flipped the question and asked the same 25 if they would buy a design magazine with a poorly designed cover 100% of the people said no.

Competitions

Wallpaper* have also ran lots of competitions and interactions with there customers. This is a competition that I found that was particularly interesting and innovative.

“Wallpaper* magazine is once again offering you the chance to play art director and create your very own cover for its Handmade August 2011 issue.

Simply order a copy of the issue (£6) before 31st May and Wallpaper*, in association with Rolex and Kin Design, will give you access to the improved Custom Cover application tools – complete with a whole new palette of graphics, shapes, colours and photography for you to utilise. You can scale, rotate, colour and assemble these any way you like to create your masterpiece.

Also new this year is the ability to add animated designs to your digital cover, which can then be viewed online at wallpaper.com.

We’ve selected a 10 of our favourites below, but if you’re stuck for ideas you can view the entire online gallery of users submissions for some fresh inspiration.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RpRGlEzR2vM&feature=player_embedded

Above is a link to an interesting video showing how the design was made.

                 

Aside from producing the monthly magazine and website, Wallpaper also publishes global city guide books with Phaidon Press. There are 80 different cities currently available, and more are being published later in the year. The city guides are published in English and there are also editions available in French, Italian, Spanish, German, Portuguese, and Japanese.