Rolling Stone has given its logo, interior pages and online presence a facelift. Starting with the July issue, the magazine reduces frequency to monthly, and flaunts an oversized format with extra pages, heavier paper stock, richer photography and perfect binding that it hopes will give the print edition a reason-to-be in a digital era. Some traditional content has been winnowed away to double down on what the publisher believes the audience really cares about: music, political coverage, and pop culture. The website continues to be the brand’s primary channel for breaking music news, though plans are to add more content such as original videos, reviews and lists.
As for the iconic masthead, the new logo has been tweaked rather than changed. It is essentially a one-tone smoothed-out rendition of its predecessor with the ‘R’ enlarged and dipped below rest of the wordmark. Design Director Joe Hutchinson explains that it focuses more on the letterforms, works better online and in social media channels, but is still a powerful and familiar marker of the brand. As Hutchinson explains, the original is so famous that it felt “scary to mess” with it … There’s such history in this logo, we couldn’t afford to abandon it now.”
