The look of reason.

• Author: Mangu-Ward, Katherine
• Position: Artifact

THE FIRST ISSUE of reason consisted of seven typewritten, mimeographed pages. Over the years, the magazine got fancier, with photos replacing moody pen-and-ink sketches and color hitting the cover in 1979.

reason's most recent redesign hit newsstands in 2001. Orchestrated by then-Editor in Chief Nick Gillespie, Wired founder Louis Rossetto, and eccentric font design phenom Erik Spiekermann, the fresh look switched the magazine from an off-the-shelf font to a typeface designed by Spiekermann himself, called Meta. The sleek, modern font, a "humanist sans-serif," is a far cry from the jagged typewriter strokes and the workhorse basics of the early years. We live in a world where the tools of individual expression, even typefaces, have grown ever more nuanced and accessible.

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