Fast Company has undergone a redesign

Mike Schnaidt, the creative director of Fast Company, writes about its redesign.

Schnaidt writes, “We now have a stronger emphasis on branding. Our Next section features everything from a diagram of timber architecture to infographics on gene editing to a beautifully photographed Q&A with influencer chef Alison Roman. These pages make up just a few of Fast Company’s franchises: “Material World,” “Data Dive,” and “Master Class.” Because they are so integral to the Fast Company brand, we developed an icon system to give each an identity. And our Recommender section, which is brimming with product suggestions and life hacks from some of the top minds in business, is now branded with sophisticated badges for franchises such as “Favorite Thing,” “Want It,” and “It Never Gets Old.”

“Design is a delicate balance of consistency and variety. With strict branding and typographic systems in place, we now had the freedom to be more playful with our layouts. We thought, What if you take some of the most static elements of the magazine—the page number and section name—and make them the most dynamic? They now ping-pong all over the page: on the top, the bottom, even turned on their sides. And as you flip through the magazine, you’ll notice a fluctuating design for page numbers. It’s our little way of celebrating the magazine medium.”

Read more here.