technology, and administered by naïfs, who, armed with press-type, benday
and patterned Letraset screens, ruling tapes, Addressograph phototype,
freebie photographs, and raunchy comix, produced raw but expressive
nongraphic design. Despite the differences in approach, the instinctive
underground layout practiced then and the mannered culture tabloid design
of today are remarkably similar.
Underground papers began declining in the late 1960 s. A new
genre of alternative “sex-culture” papers (many published by the
underground papers themselves to make money) stole a fickle audience that
preferred nudity to profundity. The underground tabloids finally died in the
mid- 1970 s with the end of Vietnam War, the resignation of Richard Nixon,
and as the “me” decade was taking hold. At the same time, a national paper
shortage resulted in the decrease of the standard tabloid size and an
increase in production costs. Moreover, many of those involved in
underground publishing either were irrevocably burned out, or simply grew
up and became interested in more conventional lives and livelihoods.
Those designers who used the underground press as a kind of
graduate school—including Roger Black of Rolling Stoneand Ronn
Campisi ofFusion—wed the street-smart design and exuberance they
learned with conventional design practices while working for more
establishment journals. Hence, during the mid- 1970 s a second wave of
counter-culture tabloids emerged, such as the Real Paper,Boston Phoenix,
and Chicago Reader, among others, which were neither raw nor anarchic,
but rather found solace in convention. Indeed, the only editorial difference
from regional consumer magazines like New York, was that the tabloids
appealed to a slightly younger, but nevertheless upwardly mobile readership.
In terms of their design and editorial bent, these publications were upbeat,
yet somewhat staid blends of New York’s Village Voice, the New York Review
of Books, and Rolling Stone. Their purpose was to educate, inform, and
otherwise provide readers with reviews and calendar features.
Slightly before the second wave crested, the granddaddy of new
tabloids, Andy Warhol’s Interview, appeared. In the early 1970 s a few
avant-garde artists gave vent to their ego needs by publishing artsy, gossip-
filled magazines. That Warhol’s was the only one to survive was a tribute to
a basically sound idea: interviews with movie stars, glitterati, and eccentric
personalities otherwise ignored by the establishment press, and a forum for
fashion-conscious writers. The first issues were quarterfold formats, with
lackluster design and no exceptional visual personality. But Interview
quickly developed a constituency and, during the late 1970 s, a distinctive
look when Richard Bernstein was commissioned to do regular full-color
cover portraits.Interviewdeveloped into an odd but enjoyable amalgam of
tuis.
(Tuis.)
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