1980's magazine design

I picked up a copy of the SPD Annual from 1989 in a charity shop the other day. The eighties was such an overtly stylised decade that many of the spreads now look as incongruous as a Cyndi Lauper puffball skirt, so I can't pretend that much of the work has aged well, but nevertheless, in amongst the tics and tropes of the time—over-compressed and letterspaced capped serifs, leaderlines etc—there is some genuinely good stuff tucked away.

There's this for instance: remember the excitement when word began to spread about what David Carson was doing? Here he is, pre-Raygun, cutting through the crowd like a lightning bolt with Skateboard magazine from 1987. This is a clear statement of intent, and presaged much that was to come in the 1990s.





And here's another art director who was soon to become a household name: the late, great Tibor Kalman, pre-COLORS, with a powerful and witty pair of covers for Art Forum magazine, again from 1987.




And finally, from Life magazine and art directed by Charles Pates, an introduction to a certain young boxer, destined for great things…