Brand Bible

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

Rolling Stone







There are emotions and memories associated with

print that I don’t think you can experience without

actually holding and touching something. Consider

an old copy of one of the magazines from your

youth—that rolled-up issue of Tiger Beat that had

your groovy preteen handwriting on the love quiz on

page 12. Or your battered copy of Catcher in the Rye.

I don’t think there’s a digital equivalent for these

things. That said, I could end up caring more about

saving space, and being able to access information

immediately, than keeping all these mementos. But

I haven’t yet reached that point when my reading

material has become a burden that outweighs my

sentimental leanings.

29

How to Brand

print



Gail Anderson 

SpotCo

Reflections on

typography, entertainment,

and design as performance

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279

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









In my ten years at SpotCo, I learned to very atten-

tively consider the audience. It’s not that I didn’t do

that in the past when I was working in magazines. But

it felt like the stakes were a little higher when design-

ing artwork to generate an emotional response from

potential ticket buyers—that would usually be the

rst thing that they see.

In theater, there were often many folks involved in

the decision-making process, which was new for

me. And for the most part, we presented anywhere

from six to a dozen ideas for larger shows. That was a

complete surprise after rening only singular ideas

at Rolling Stone. Perhaps that’s also a function of the

era when I was at Rolling Stone, where we only had a

single “client.”







Rolling Stone 



Steve Heller has suggested that since my typography

was “theatrical,” the move to SpotCo in 2002 was a

natural one. I myself remember thinking, “Well, the

magazine spreads were like posters, so I can make

theater posters—right?” The transition was actually

much more dicult for me than I’d ever imagined—

and the design part was the least of it! My world was

turned upside down, because I was used to working in

a two-week cycle, and I was now sitting with projects

that sometimes lingered for months. I had to learn a

One of a series

of posters for the

School of Visual Arts

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