the "Before&After" treatment returns!
While browsing this why-bother-with-a-hierarchy-when-you-can-have-chaos mess of a site I was reminded of an old friend: Before&After magazine. In its bimonthly pages, editor John McWade would provide invaluable tips to fledgling desktop publishers (like myself) on how to accomplish all manner of things with Aldus PageMaker and FreeHand. A highlight of each issue was McWade performing a sort of Queer Eye makeover on an amateur design project, like a mass mailing, stationery identity system, or restaurant menu. Nothing particularly queer about that, except that McWade's turnarounds of seemingly hopeless designs were frequently as stunning as those realized by the Fab 5. RGJ.com could really, really use the B&A treatment.
...Turns out it might get it someday! Before&After is back in print, and I couldn't be happier. This magazine was a pleasure to leaf through back in the pioneering days of desktop publishing, regardless of whether the techniques or visual problems solved even applied to my own work. I can only imagine that McWade and Co. will have some new tricks up their sleeves to offer the web publishing/graphics community.
I still have back issues of B&A from the early 90s that I never had the heart to recycle, even though it's been a long, long time since I used PageMaker or Quark. I figured that McWade's effortless synthesis of the whys of print design with the hows of publishing software would remain evergreen. Time to go crack open that dusty manila folder and see if the test of time has been withstood -- while i wait for Issue 35 to arrive.