Spare Rib began in 1971 and was feminist magazine designed to be widely read, with an interesting, subversive design but with the appearance of a 'women's mag'.
One afternoon in late January 1972, Rosie Boycott and I went around to Sally’s flat, where she and Kate had been working. All afternoon Kate had been experimenting with torn up tissue paper to fashion the letters of Spare Rib into a logo. They ‘knocked the ideas backwards and forwards as we were looking at it’, Kate said, ‘continuous talking. It was not about planning, it was about feeling your way through it’.
This suggests that in order to make the logo it was very spontaneous and experimental process, a similar approach could be taken in order to develop the 'Headstrong' logo.
For reasons of cost, we planned to use only two colours plus black, not the four colours that are usually used to compose the plush, full-colour offering of a woman’s magazine. Sally described how applying that decision based on the constraints of a limited budget, and making it work so as to bring out subtle and arresting results, was a significant challenge. ‘It was so exciting after working on Vogue, which was so formulaic. Experimenting with tints, using a spot-colour, produced designs that were innovative and energetic’.
The production was very low budget which drove the design, new techniques and styles were being created as a result of the low budget constraint. This could also be something that I apply to the design in order to engage with interesting and subversive results. However, one of the main goals of the project is to be intersectional and modern; many current magazines are professional and sleek - perhaps this is an important characteristic to carry though in the magazines of 4th wave feminism.
https://www.bl.uk/spare-rib/articles/design-and-spare-rib
After reading this I began experimenting with typefaces. The first 5 I looked at had several issues with them which helped me to hone down the qualities I wanted in the final logo. For example, the first typeface 'Industrial 736 BT Roman' felt too thin and delicate, it reminded me of a fashion magazine and had too much of a feminine connotation. The second 'Palatino Linotype' had ears and serifs that felt too angular and 'blocky'. The logo needed to appear smooth and precise.The third; 'Plantagent Cherokee' felt good, it had terminals that were professional and curved, this felt like it could link to the female figure. 'Times New Roman' felt too classic and traditional, it didn't feel contemporary enough for the feminist magazine. There was some thought that it could be restyled and remade into a contemporary version, but this felt unnecessary. Finally, the typeface 'ZapHumnst Utl BT Ultra' was the only sans serif typeface I tried out. It appeared sleek and modern and this is perhaps good for an audience of young women. However, I image in would work better in uppercase.
I then developed the typeface 'Adobe Garamond Pro' which felt like the most contemporary and classic that was trialed. There are elements that need some kerning and there are more experiments to be made, but these were the initial ideas. The logo in uppercase didn't seem to work as well because the serif typeface felt too traditional, uppercase could be experimented with a sans serif typeface instead. Another experiment was to place the R of 'Headstrong' as a capital, this was to give the logo some originality and in some ways to pay homage to 'Riot Grrrl' feminists. 'Headstrong' could be written 'Headstrrrng', but perhaps this just isn't professional enough for the image of the magazine. If I wanted to use an outstanding R in the design, it would have to be more obvious as a design decision, perhaps in a different colour or larger. This lead me on to considering doing a logo that is entirely a mixture of serif and sans serif letterforms, to reflect the intersectionality of the magazine.
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