The development history of Youth Digest magazine titles and fonts
I officially started working at Youth Digest in January 1981. At that time, No. 12 No. 21 was still a bungalow. To the east of the large courtyard is a small square courtyard. In the northwest corner of the small courtyard is a two-bedroom apartment. The inner room is the editorial office of "Traveler", and the outer room is the editor of "Youth Digest" Department. At that time, there were only five people in the editorial department, and I was the fifth person.
When I came to "Youth Digest", the manuscript for the first issue of the magazine had almost been compiled, the cover had been designed, and the illustrations were basically completed. The preliminary work was done by the publishing house at that time. It was completed by Mr. Qin Yunsheng, the director of the art editing room, and I just continued to arrange the layout and go to the printing factory to publish the article. The name of the magazine on the cover this year was very similar to the current boldface, but it was designed by hand. I remember it was designed by the Central Arts and Crafts Written by students from the Bookstore Department of the Academy (now called Tsinghua University Academy of Fine Arts). This year's magazine published 4 issues in a row, and the circulation of the first issue was 170,000 copies.
In 1982, the magazine was changed to a bimonthly publication, and the format was also changed from 32K to 16K. The cover naturally had to be redesigned, and the font of the title on the cover became the focus of everyone's attention. After screening, I selected the magazine name designed by Mr. Lu Jiefu. The font is somewhat similar to the current bold and bold font. Since the magazine name font had become the focus of everyone's attention at that time, it felt uncomfortable no matter how you read it, so I put that in the second issue. The four characters underwent surgery, and some changes were made to the thickness of the strokes and the structure of the characters. Time waits for no one, and the cover of the second issue was published. During this period, the editorial department received submissions from enthusiastic readers, including dozens of calligraphy works. The person in charge at the time, Mr. Zhang Qingya, had an idea and suggested that the name of the publication could be collected from readers. Some people also said that it could be selected from Mr. Lu Xun’s words like the name of the publishing house, or from Chairman Mao’s poems... There was no such thing as copyright at that time, and finally the conclusion was reached in the heated discussions among everyone. : Ask a celebrity to inscribe it! So the name of the third issue's cover issue was born. The author is Mr. Wu Zuoren, the honorary president of the Central Academy of Arts and Crafts and 74 years old at the time. The fourth issue uses the calligraphy of Mr. Du Dakai, a teacher at the Central Academy of Arts and Crafts; the fifth issue uses the calligraphy of General Zhang Aiping. At this point, everyone finally calmed down a bit and felt that it was not a big deal to bother them all the time. So they went back to compare and felt that Mr. Du Dakai's calligraphy still had a "flavor", so they used it again in the sixth issue. Mr. Du Dakai's words.
In the past year, someone suggested that it would be better to use Mr. Wu Zuoren’s calligraphy, so for three years from 1983 to 1985, the name of the Youth Digest magazine always used Mr. Wu Zuoren’s inscription.
In the blink of an eye, it was the end of 1985. The agency's "Traveler" magazine ceased publication. The magazine's art editor, Mr. Chen Hui, was transferred to the "Youth Digest" magazine as an art editor. Mr. Chen's artistic calligraphy was very good. Well, under his suggestion, Mr. Chen redesigned the title of Youth Digest. The new title is thicker and more eye-catching on newsstands. At that time, the magazine's cover photos used multiple photos in each issue. Although it felt a bit "picked", the overall feeling was not grand enough. In 1986, we redesigned the cover, and the fonts were also improved accordingly. The improved magazine name This is the prototype of the current publication name. The magazine is also becoming more and more mature as it continues to develop.
In the following ten years, the font of the title of "Youth Digest" underwent 4-5 minor operations, especially the use of computers, which made it easier to modify and change the font than before. many.
If a magazine is compared to a person’s face, the title of the magazine would be the eyes on the face. Change is eternal, and human beings progress through change. But not all changes are good. Don’t change for the sake of change, but stop before you change. Mr. Li Jiacheng once said: Don’t forget stability while developing, and don’t forget development while being steady. Thinking about it, this really makes sense.