Aspen Times Special Issue (International Design Conference), 1971
This layout and packaging design for a special issue of the Aspen Times released to the participants of the 1971 International Design Conference in Aspen, Colorado, was created and designed by Sheila Levrant de Bretteville.
De Bretteville is known for creating impactful postmodern designs infused with political meaning and activism; she is particularly acclaimed for her work with feminist design and her founding and co-founding of the Woman's Building, Women's Graphic Center, and Feminist Studio Workshop. She has described her work as deeply communitarian, focused on audience, and devoted to highlighting differences.
De Bretteville's focus on communal and participatory design is reflected in her design for the 1971 special issue of the Aspen Times, which she described as “making the content be the voices of the audience.” Instead of producing an issue about the conference weeks or months afterward and mailing them to participants, De Bretteville worked with attendees to create a record of the International Design Conference as it occurred. She distributed the resulting document to participants on the last day of the conference.
Technically, the publication creates a sense of visual tension by utilizing diagonally slanting rows and upright columns of photographs. This contrast, in addition to the use of handwritten paragraphs set at opposing angles, gives the newspaper a chaotic, unconventional appearance. By formatting the magazine in this way, De Bretteville challenges the notion that design should be legible and hierarchical, mirroring her activist approach to design.
Sources:
https://eastofborneo.org/archives/special-edition-of-the-aspen-times-1971/
https://medium.com/progetto-grafico/being-otherwise-b9ccbfca503a
