Block Club Magazine: 2010 House & Home Issue
Posted on Wednesday, March 17th, 2010
by block club
Issue No. 18 of Block Club Magazine is our 3rd Annual House & Home Issue (March/April 2010), and we couldn’t have had a better time designing it. Our editorial direction took a turn backward to the historical significance of our region’s older homes. The movement to restore and rehab homes older than 50 years––which has been gaining momentum in the last five or six years––is a fascinating one. We could approach the topic by way of focusing on structures and architecture, or we could have decided to discuss how residents make older houses into newer homes. Both angles offered intriguing design possibilities. We decided to have both conversations, combining the physical and the emotional. This presented a wonderful challenge to us as designers.
We kept the look of this issue very simple, instead devoting our content pages to more text than imagery. A story about the historic preservation movement (which covers significant commercial and public buildings in addition to private homes) includes small thumbnail photos of a few mentioned structures above pull quotes from those interviewed. Another story, about two homeowners’ restoration/renovation projects, included one image of each house set within a colored box made to look like a speech bubble. This is consistent with the article’s theme that historic homes speak, in a way, to their current owners. One more story, a photo spread of exciting transformed public buildings––a firehouse, schoolhouse and church among them––was more photo-heavy. There, we peppered those pages with short blurbs highlighting specific details in the photos.
Something new we implemented with this issue was the inclusion of online photo slideshows on the Block Club Web site (www.BlockClubOnline.com/Blog) to complement the printed stories. Where printed stories require as much white space as possible, in order to include as much text as possible, we are limitless online. We encourage you to read the issue’s stories in print, and then go online to see even more great images. Enjoy!
Leah says: March 24th, 2010 at 12:22 pm
Shh. Don’t tell anyone, This issue has been sitting on my desk at work since last week and I page through it everyday. I love everything in it! Amazing writing, great articles, and a great balance of ads and writing. You guys are a powerhouse!