New Work: ‘Eigen Huis & Interieur’
The Netherlands is perhaps the most design-savvy country in the world, and Eigen Huis & Interieur (Home & Interior) is the magazine that brings the Dutch love for design home. With a broad, eclectic focus, EH&I covers everything from interior design, architecture and products to art and culture for an audience that encompasses homeowners and design aficionados, practicing designers and architects. Pentagram’s Luke Hayman and his team have redesigned EH&I with a bold new format that asserts the magazine’s position as the leading authority on modern home design.
EH&I’s behind-the-scenes video about the making of the redesign.
Hayman worked closely with editor–in-chief Mary Hessing and her team at EH&I to create a design that would capture the magazine’s smart, progressive and opinionated tone. Founded in the 1960s, the magazine has long history of reporting on modern living and mixes trend pieces and trade news with substantial profiles on major architects and exquisitely photographed interiors. Like the rest of the world, the Dutch have responded to the recent uncertain economic climate with a renewed focus on the home, and the magazine wanted to play an active role in this trend.
The designers had a face-to-face meeting with EH&I’s team only once at the beginning of the project. The rest of the collaboration was conducted via Skype and email, a surprisingly fluid process that Hayman and his designers hope to use in future international projects. EH&I documented the collaboration in a short video posted on YouTube.
EH&I has a considerable amount of content—most issues run more than 300 pages and are filled with beautiful visuals, both editorial and advertising, that require some organization for the reader. The new redesign establishes a stronger, more navigable structure built on a simple grid. Departments and features have been reorganized, and stories are now numbered, so trends in the front-of-book news section (“Update/Trend No. 1”) and feature interiors portfolios (“Interieur 1,” “Interieur 2,” etc.) are easy to follow. The magazine now includes English text for major articles.
The redesign employs an increased use of charts and information graphics to help provide a buzzy, knowledgeable tone, especially in Het Katern (“The Booklet”) a new back-of-book section that features design news, profiles and product, book and building reviews for serious design fans. Throughout the magazine, graphic silhouettes of common objects and design classics including chairs, bicycles, chickens and other objects appear as playful accents.
A suite of fonts is employed in the redesign. The serif font Austin is used for section names and headlines in department features and feature stories. Lyon Display is used for headlines on the cover and in department and feature stories, and Lyon Text is used for body text. Graphik is utilized for photo captions, sidebar text and headlines in department and feature stories. A mix of Austin, Lyon Display and Graphik are used for the interior feature stories, depending on the mood of the interior.
The team also redesigned the magazine’s masthead. The magazine’s name is long and usually appears abbreviated, as “EH&I.” The new identity features a distinctive ampersand that becomes an icon of the brand. The logotype is set in the font E Ten; the ampersand is Austin.
Project Team: Luke Hayman, partner-in-charge and designer; Shigeto Akiyama and Regan Johnson, designers.