The White Stripes released ‘Seven Nation Army’ the year I moved to Jersey. It won Best Rock Song at the Grammys and the video, that was one perpetual path through a kaleidescope of Jack and Meg White playing, interspered with animals and skeletons marching (like an army, get it?), was mesmerising.
It still is. I’ve just had to avert my attention back to this screen, as I’m playing it on YouTube as I write. The riff still has it and the song has endured, along with our own white stripe – the masthead at the top of the cover, for the best part of 15 years. But whilst Jack White’s guitar still cuts it, it was time for a subtle branding change on our cover. We weren’t the first magazine to ever have a black logo and white stripe at the top, but it’s been our style now for some 10 years and it’s a pretty common look these days. Sure, it’s only subtle shade change but it’s a conscioius move to evolve. Evolution, not revolution.
It’s actually due to the absence of our designer, who is taking a three-week trip to do a gruelling motorbike rally in Greece this month and my getting my intefering hands back on the design. Ahead of next month’s Jersey Style Awards, organiser Tessa Hartman profiles host Tuuli Shipster (page 12). We therefore got to choose an amazing cover portrait of her from a portfolio of images taken by her husband, the fashion photographer, Rankin.
The new design started as a way to frame that shot and it just sort of snowballed. Kind of like publishing Gallery in the first place. I hope you approve. Let me know, my email address is over there >>
BD