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Technology has developed exponentially over the past 30 years, including the birth and spread of the World Wide Web, changing the world beyond recognition in the process.
Wired, more than any other publication in the modern era, has not only ridden the wave of this technological and digital revolution, but arguably helped it grow and forced us to consider its wider significance.
True to its tagline, ‘where tomorrow is realised’, over the last few decades it has, without a shadow of a doubt, been the periodical that has best kept pace with the times, both in terms of its content and its graphic design.
Wired was founded in San Francisco in 1993, on the back of the tidal wave of global technological innovation that began in Silicon Valley, California. As well as investigating technical aspects, the magazine’s articles on the new frontiers of digital technology, internet and innovation looked particularly at their impact on society, straying at times into pure philosophical speculation.
With the web still in its infancy, Wired soon became known for its discussions of the future; it sought to predict it and reimagine it in light of the latest technologies, drawing on authoritative figures from Nicholas Negroponte to Barack Obama.
Some articles – like Chris Anderson’s piece on ‘the long tail’ – and certain stories and interviews, like the magazine’s work on Edward Snowden, went down in journalism history, establishing Wired’s reputation as both an aesthetically pleasing magazine designed to appeal to digital pioneers and a publication with an innovative way of describing and exploring the modern age.
Only innovators can discuss innovation
A magazine focused on innovation certainly cannot afford to have a traditional look, and so, from the very first issue, Wired did everything it could to stand out from the rest of the global publishing landscape. The magazine has always been at the forefront of graphic design and visual innovation, particularly since its 2003 redesign, always pushing the boundaries of design a little further.
Take the fonts used in the magazine, for instance: there are at least six of them, including Courier, which is used for two letters in the logo and for the headers. The use of this font recalling classic typewriter characters shows how with Wired, anything can be made to look modern and futuristic.
The grid underpinning the pages’ graphics is complex (with 14 or 15 columns) and therefore incredibly flexible, offering a huge number of layout options. In addition, the magazine’s structure fosters an experimental approach, with numerous one- or two-page articles that can almost be treated as stand-alone projects.
A great deal of attention is also paid to the smallest details: the running headers, the borders that divide up the contents, the page numbers and the boxes act as decoration for the pages, while remaining functional and easy to read.
Disruptive covers
Wired’s covers stood out in the 1990s publishing market for the way they took full advantage of the era’s innovations in graphic design and printing.
This trend continues to this day: the covers tend to feature a close-up photo of an important figure, often enhanced with filters and colourful, almost neon, effects, with brazen use of typography and colours. Some issues have an almost punk look, inspired by London’s graphic style.
The designs frequently play around with typography, particularly using attention-grabbing phrases, like the infamous (and ill-fated) ‘The Web is Dead’ from 2010.
The masthead – or logo – has each letter in a separate square, which, according to the designers, means they appear to flash when you read them.
Wired’s European editions were even more experimental, particularly in Italy, where in the first few years of its existence the magazine focused obsessively on the most advanced and innovative printing techniques, in part thanks to Davide Moretti’s stint as creative director: embossing, varnishes, neon ink, mirror effects, inserts, fold-outs and anything else you can imagine were all used, in a sort of sampler of 2000s printing techniques, as if to prove that print had not given way to digital, but instead taken advantage of the technological innovation available.
In 2010, the prestigious Society of Publishing Designers (SPD), which had previously recognised the Italian monthly magazine IL in its awards, ranked Wired Italia as one of the top ten best-designed magazines in the world.
The Italian edition suffered financial difficulties in around 2014, and its budget was cut, forcing it to reduce its publishing schedule from monthly to quarterly and to return to being a more ‘normal’ product, although it remains a very good-looking publication.
Telling stories, informing and entertaining with infographics
One of Wired’s biggest innovations was its widespread use of infographics, which are employed not only for displaying quantitative scientific data, but also for telling stories and presenting qualitative information like tests, comparisons and surveys.
Each issue features numerous diagrams, technical illustrations with cutaways and reconstructions, as well as beautiful cropped photographs that are turned into sources of information through the addition of captions, arrows and lines.
The audacious, fun and widespread use of this type of graphic design makes the magazine a pleasure to read, providing the readership with useful ideas and data while they enjoy the article.
Moreover, this type of visual content limits the use of editorial illustrations – one of the most common features of modern publishing – and so sets the magazine apart from its competitors.
In Wired, every image serves the narrative, and does so in an innovative way.
A new, more inclusive style
One of the criticisms levelled at Wired in the past was that almost all the people featured on the cover were male. The contents inside also seemed predominantly aimed at 30-50-year-old men with a love of new technology. When it was redesigned in 2013, Wired’s overall appearance veered towards something more akin to a lifestyle magazine, with bold fonts, bright colours and eye-catching graphic choices. This reflected its aim to address a broader audience, incorporating not only women but also readers without any particular expertise in the digital world, distinguishing it from the nerdy tech magazines that still filled newsagents’ shelves in the early 2000s.
Innovation is key
Wired’s graphic design pushed the DTP (desktop publishing) software of 30 years ago to its technical limits, and accelerated the graphics revolution in the world of publishing.
Its smart and widespread use of infographics helped to cement their use as a form of communication, laying the foundations for what would become graphic journalism.
Having different artwork in each section, or even each article, brought experimentation to a wider audience, meaning that the new protagonists and users of digital technology were thrust into a revolutionary world that differed substantially from the traditional approach they were accustomed to.
Bold colours, sharp contrasts and the use of special varnishes helped to establish a sort of digital psychedelia, a style that persists in the public imagination to this day.
The focused use of photographs, meanwhile, provided an innovative form of visual storytelling that created impactful narratives and investigations.
In conclusion, Wired was the standard-bearer for a major visual revolution that went hand-in-hand with the most innovative and disruptive period of the new digital era, offering imagery and graphics that contrasted with the cold, TRON-esque computer style of its competitors. Its references to late 1980s pop and alternative culture created a new visual language that inspired the entire cultural industry until the 2000s.
Given the increasing influence of AI on the digital world, we are probably due a new Wired – a publication to disrupt the status quo.
We can’t wait to find out which magazine takes up the challenge!
PS Or perhaps this new disrupter will be Wired itself?
Image sources:
https://godfreydadich.com/work/wired
https://www.itsnicethat.com/articles/andrew-diprose-10-years-wired-publication-030519
https://fontsinuse.com/uses/4902/wired-2013
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