Our art director takes a look at his favorite illustrations and
photographs of the year.
 ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌


View this email in your browser
<[link removed]>

 

 

Like my colleagues, I am taking a few minutes at the end of the year to
look at some of my favorite

**Prospect** projects from the last 12 months. But as I am the
magazine's designer and all-around "visual guy," my list will be a bit
different from my workmates', who will be rounding up some of their
own articles. While my own rundown features plenty of strong reporting
and analysis, I had nothing to do with that part. My job encompasses the
look of the magazine-the typography and the visuals used to pull
readers into texts and bring story points to life.

 

**Favorite Cover**Working with illustrators is among the best duties of
designing a magazine-it's a chance to work closely with talented
people from around the country (and around the world) and to expand the
visual vocabulary of the publication beyond what can be  accomplished
in-house. Alas, it doesn't always work that way in practice-I have
worked at magazines that workshopped preliminary sketches so heavily
(and often detrimentally) that there was very little spunk left in the
final. At the

**Prospect**, we usually succeed in taking a more genuinely
collaborative approach. A conceptually challenging piece that we happily
turned completely over to illustrator Angie Wang was October's cover
featuring David Dayen's "How Policy Got Done in 2022
<[link removed]>," a piece
about Biden's legislative victories. I'm also pleased with the
understated but conceptually integrated type treatment.

**Favorite Interior Illustration by a Real Illustrator**
I'm not going to pick one this year, because there are too many good
ones to choose from. Instead, I'm going to let the Society of
Illustrators of New York (a bit of a misleading name-they have
members, and recognize work from all over the world) choose one for me:
"'Welcome to Hell,'
<[link removed]>" a 3D
rendered illustration by Wesley Bedrosian (he also did "Anatomy of an
Anti-Union Meeting
<[link removed]>" for us)
was recognized as one of the best illustrations of the year.

**Favorite Interior Illustration by In-House Staff (Me)**Few who have
seen one of my drawings would guess that they were the product of
someone with an MFA in painting. Never all that good at the drawing part
of drawing, my skills have atrophied further as I have focused instead
on publication design over the last few decades. Nevertheless, I was
pleased with the old-skool line art spot I did for Paul Starr's piece
<[link removed]>
on the Supreme Court after the midterms. It could almost have appeared
in a '50s pulp magazine, as could my web-only illustration for "San
Quentin Is Still Punishing People for Being Sick
<[link removed]>,"
a piece on the ongoing COVID crisis in a California prison.

**Best Photograph**
This is a new category this year! At my last publication, I worked with
a great staff photographer, and as a result the publication, though it
always looked good, had little remaining in the art budget for
illustration-I could only commission a cover once or twice a year,
usually for one of our advertising-driven special issues. At the

**Prospect**, my situation is a bit reversed; I have an adequate budget
for good illustration in every issue, but most photographs we use come
from the Associated Press, and their offerings are a bit of a mixed bag
in terms of visual quality. But we did commission a couple of
outstanding photographs this year, and a favorite was of whistleblower
Cyrus Coron by Pablo Robles for David Dayen's story
<[link removed]> on
neglect and fraud at the largest packaged gas distributor in the United
States. Additionally, our writers sometimes step up with pix when
reporting. Our recent travel issue
<[link removed]> had a number of compelling
staff-taken photos; a favorite was of a seaside village taken by Ryan
Cooper for his story
<[link removed]> on
the Faroe Islands tax code.

**Best Editorial Layout**
When you're a magazine designer, a visual siren call comes from what
I've come to call the 50/50 opening spread. One half of a two-page
opener is devoted to an image and the other kicks off the article with a
headline, subhead (or dek, in the biz), and possibly the start of the
article. What's not to like?-it's neat, organized, and there's a
visual focal point on each side of the spread. But they can get boring
if you overuse them, and the spreads I tend to remember don't fit into
this category. "The Modern-Day Company Towns of Arkansas
<[link removed]>," by
Olivia Paschal about the regional domination of Walmart and Tyson Foods,
almost turns the opener into a two-page illustration (in fact, we used
it that way on the website). As a bonus, it was cheap to produce: The
packaged chicken and background map came from a stock site, and I
whipped up a plausible Walmart smiley face in Adobe Illustrator.

~ JANDOS ROTHSTEIN

All of the reader support we receive funds our editorial mission:
illuminating stories about ideas, politics and power. If you value
independent journalism that informs readers about about the most
critical issues facing our lives, consider becoming a member today
<[link removed]>.

If you're already a member, thank you for your support!

We don't have a corporate benefactor. We survive thanks to readers who
care about what we do. We can't do this work without you.

BECOME A MEMBER TODAY
<[link removed]>

Click to Share this Newsletter

[link removed]


 

[link removed]


 

[link removed]


 

[link removed]


[link removed]

Copyright (c) 2022 The American Prospect. All rights reserved.

To opt out of American Prospect membership messaging, click here
<[link removed]>.

To manage your newsletter preferences, click here
<[link removed]>.

To unsubscribe from all American Prospect emails, including newsletters,
click here
<[link removed]>.
_________________

Sent to [email protected]

Unsubscribe:
[link removed]

The American Prospect, Inc., 1225 I Street NW, Suite 600, Washington, DC xxxxxx, United States