Exemplar: \ig-zem-plär\ noun, Middle
English, from Latin, exemplum: one that serves as a model
or example.
Eastern Michigan University may be exemplar, but its alumni
magazine will no longer send readers to the dictionary
to find out what the title has to do with EMU.
A consultant's suggestion that people may not see Exemplar
and automatically think "Eastern" started a cascade of
changes that have brought EMU's alumni magazine a new name
and a new look, along with its new editorial attitude.
 |
A NEW NAME, A NEW LOOK: Eastern,
EMU's
alumni magazine (above), will
debut this month
with a new name
(formerly Exemplar) and a redesign. |
The redesigned magazine, Eastern, debuts this month and,
if one of the 120,000 copies turns up in your mailbox,
the first thing you'll notice is a pretty strong sense
of where it comes from.
The title "Eastern" looms in the university's signature
green. The font has just enough visual similarities to
one used campus-wide to make it familiar, and just enough
of its own personality to make it unique.
"You get it three times a year," said University Publications
Director Darcy Gifford. "If you have it lying on your coffee
table, if you have a friend over, I want them to know immediately
what it is."
Gifford and senior graphic designer Mike Andaloro worked
to develop a light, clean, airy layout that drew on the
best aspects of university and consumer magazines they
liked. Inspired by the work of Dutch artist Piet Mondrian,
Andaloro incorporated lines and blocks into a subtle geometric
layout that looks organized without being heavy-handed.
"I like how it all kind of works together," Andaloro said. "What
we're trying to do is unify the magazine."
In addition to the new design, readers will notice better
artwork and more stories that appeal to EMU alumni and
non-alumni alike. Less departmental self-congratulation.
More cool stuff.
"The best magazines in our field are from the schools
that have the courage to let the magazine be a magazine," Gifford
said. "That's what we want to do. We want the magazine
to be a magazine and not to read like a brochure."
The story mix had already begun to change before the June
issue went to press, and it'll keep adjusting with readers
in mind, Gifford said. In the recent winter edition of
Exemplar, for example, Gifford used a nugget of news about
WEMU being honored for its programming as a springboard
for a feature called "Expert Picks." Working with WEMU
music director Linda Yohn, the magazine ran a list of nine
CDs representative of music played on WEMU.
"As a reader, you're seeing that WEMU is good, but you're
also like, 'Oh, I've never heard of this Cassandra Wilson.
What's this?'" Gifford said. "We want to give people content
they can use."
 |
LEONARD'S LEGACY: A feature article about
Peter
Leonard's writing career, including his second
novel,
"Trust Me," will appear in the June issue
of Eastern,
EMU's alumni magazine. Leonard, who
spent his
sophomore and junior years at EMU, is
the son of
noted crime novelist Elmore Leonard. |
She hopes to also use the magazine to present different
perspectives on a single idea, making it an extension of
the critical thinking the University tries to encourage
in its students.
Readers also may notice that Eastern feels different — a
little more substantial, perhaps, thanks to the switch
to a heavier weight paper that's also recycled.
"Right now, there's a willingness to look at all of our
publications and say, 'Why are we doing this? What are
the goals and objectives? What are we trying to accomplish?'" said
Gifford, who will apply those same questions to the College
of Education's Educator and the College of Arts and Sciences'
Case Notes once Eastern launches.
The changes to Eastern, Gifford hopes, will make for a
magazine that works more like the consumer magazines people
subscribe to or pick up in stores. They come home, land
on a horizontal surface and get read, browsed and enjoyed
over and over again for weeks or even months.
"I guess I just want to pull them in," Gifford said. "I
want them to be interested enough to see the cover and
want to know what's inside, and then I hope they're surprised.
And I hope they're surprised every time because they're
finding something new."
