Kicking off Making It Up As We Go Along, the monthly programme of educational events put on by Dazed editors, was ‘How To Make a Magazine’. Taking place last night (March 1) at the Dazed Space in 180 The Strand, the talk featured art director Gareth Wrighton and the Dazed design team, who covered everything from storyboarding to commissioning and creating layouts. The team also went behind the scenes of both the Rihanna and Harry Styles covers, sharing never-before-heard stories and secret tidbits that didn’t make it into print.

In case you missed it, here’s a list of five things we learnt from the event.

A TRIAL BY FIRE

Wrighton looked back on the first few months of Dazed’s new era, from working as a newly-formed team to redesigning the entire magazine in just six weeks (“it was a trial by fire”). Wrighton spoke about his decision to organically spread the redesign across the next few issues, rather than working to a strict deadline (“it’s not that deep”). Sam Ross, the director of New School, the agency formed around Dazed’s new era, shared stories from the production side of the first issue, including arriving in New York the morning of the shoot and handling the “logistical nightmare” of shipping the team and outfits to the US during a pandemic. 

THE HARRY COVER

With the 30th anniversary issue still underway, the opportunity presented itself to shoot Harry Styles for the winter 2021 issue. “We had a great talent bubble in the US already, so we thought, let’s ship them over to LA to shoot Harry. We had the first two covers of the year shot by August,” Wrighton said.

THE IMPORTANCE OF TEAMWORK

Wrighton went on to explain the design team’s role in each issue, as well as the role of post-production in administering the crucial final touches. Not everyone is the main character, we’re all part of an ensemble cast,” he said. “It’s up to us to create a beautiful magazine and it’s the people we work with whose job is to get it to paper.” Designers Bior Elliot and Ester Mejibovski then spoke about laying out the magazine on InDesign, selecting fonts, and working out the format of a story.

GRAPHIC JOKES AND MEMERY

“Since this is going all round the world in different countries, people should be able to get something from the text before they even read it,” said Wrighton. Featuring handmade doodles, each issue looks at stories through a humorous lens, with Wrighton stressing the importance of not taking things too seriously. Examples include applying the “Bottom Text” meme to the Matrix story for the winter 2021 issue and creating a text blunt to match Rihanna’s blunt in the 30th anniversary issue. 

DRAW INSPIRATION FROM ACROSS CULTURE

Having worked as a photographer, stylist and fashion designer previously, Wrighton explained the importance of pulling inspiration from a vast range of sources, not just fashion. This way, ideas are guaranteed to be original, rather than variations of what’s already out there.