Cathy Fisher - Gargoyle Art & Design

Art direction here at the Gargoyle has occasionally been something at best tenuous, and at worst nonexistent. It’s been claimed that the general philosophy was that the magazine should be completely without rules, which would limit the creativity and independence of the content. While in theory this is a noble effort, it mostly resulted in magazines that looked disjointed. The layout on one page could be fantastic and effective and the next page would be terrible. This past year I’ve been working hard to scrap this approach by making a generic article template that can be modified slightly to suit its content while still maintaining a unified overall look. The new system did (in my humble opinion) an admirable job on our very article-heavy second issue.

The most recent issue, fondly referred to as “The Cut-Up Issue,” was the Garg’s first real visual experiment since I joined the staff, and probably before that. We basically wanted to see if we could make an entire issue using found images for the layout and design. As such, my new template didn’t see much use. There have been mixed reactions to it, but I think it was a success and demonstrated that when we put our minds to it, we are in fact capable of consistently imaginative and original design that integrates images into every article.

The art staff will continue to develop the layout system over the next few issues to more seamlessly integrate images and words into a humor-packed literary-visual cyborg with no conscience and a lust for human blood. Ideally, it will recognize us as its creators and obey our commands, but we cannot be sure. If it does not, at least remember that we died for the sake of art.