Amid Capeci, who was an art director for Newsweek, Rolling Stone and Entertainment Weekly, died a couple of weeks ago at age 50.
I didn’t know Capeci, although I did admire his work, so when he passed away I took notice.
I would try to describe his art, but it might be better to just show you. Here are a few of his covers, which I grabbed from this article about him:
Now, I am showing you all of that because I want to get to the real reason I’m blogging about Capeci. The whole reason I’m writing this is because of two paragraphs from a New York Times article about him.
Jon Meacham, his editor then at Newsweek, said in an interview last week that he had hired Mr. Capeci for the redesign because he was a very good magazine designer, but also because he understood and loved journalism. Mr. Capeci’s decisions, Mr. Meacham said, were always made in the service of the journalism on the page.
“Amid was a journalist who was a designer,” Mr. Meacham said. He liked the things reporters like: urgency, exclusives, working fast to remake a cover when a big story broke. “Most designers hate chaos; Amid loved chaos,” Mr. Meacham added.”
When I read those words about him, I wanted to start shouting at the article, ‘yes, yes, yes!’ – because I feel like it describes me as well. A journalist who is also a designer. Someone who cares not only about the beauty of the design, but how the words feel on the page. What a person will experience when holding my creation in their hands. How I can make someone who intended to flip through my publication stop, take a second look, and then dive into the stories that the editors and writers have been working so hard to make happen.
The amazing thing about my new gig at Creative Loafing is getting to experience being surrounded my colleagues who not only care about the stories they are writing, but how they will look on the page. I’ve never experienced journalists who seem to notice and care so much what the design actually looks like – and it’s such a wonderful collaboration. Keep watching – even bigger things to come. We are making magic happen over here, folks.
Just like it looks like Capeci did during his career. I’m sorry to hear that he’s gone too soon.
